


Summer in New Terra

by warren_space



Series: New Terra-tory [4]
Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: BDSM, Book 4: Cibola Burn, Consensual Somnophilia, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Insecurity, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outdoor Sex, Phone Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Semi-Public Sex, Spanking, The Expanse Season 4, Timestamp, Verbal Humiliation, Verbal Sex, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warren_space/pseuds/warren_space
Summary: Holden can't relax on Ilus. Amos helps celebrate his birthday.This fic explores further the relationship between Holden and Amos in Sleepless in New Terra. It takes place during the fic, but can be read alone.
Relationships: Amos Burton/Jim Holden
Series: New Terra-tory [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745149
Comments: 118
Kudos: 83





	1. Three days before

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for (enthusiastically consensual) verbal degradation that could be uncomfortable to those sensitive to verbal abuse.

_Three days before_

####  **Amos**

It was March on Earth, Amos looked it up. 

The star nearest Ilus beat down on the foreign planet like Sol smiling on a scorching July afternoon on Earth. The scarcity of clean water dehydrated Amos’s body slightly, and humidity swelled in the air, convincingly parroting an American summer. But Amos looked it up, and it was only March on Earth, which meant Holden’s birthday was coming up. 

Amos didn’t pay attention to birthdays. He left Earth when he was fifteen years old, and had very little use for the Gregorian calendar since then. The birth certificate he used when he needed one said that his birthday was April sixth, but it also said that his name was Amos Burton, which wasn’t technically true, either. Celebrating that fake birthday would probably just remind him that no one had cared enough when he was born to keep track of his real one, so he avoided it. 

Holden’s childhood was not like Amos’s. Holden had eight parents who cared about him, a house on a farm, and a high school with a homecoming where he lost his virginity when he was old enough that he still remembered what her name was. Holden had a birthday, and people who celebrated that birthday, even when he was thirty-four-going-on-thirty-five, way older than Amos figured anyone should give a fuck about a man’s birthday. 

Normally, Amos wouldn’t give a fuck about Holden’s birthday. But Ilus was getting under Holden’s skin, and it wasn’t just the way it went from stormy to hot to cool in the blink of an eye. The planet itself— temperamental, unpredictable, and riddled with alien unknowns— was only half of the problem. The colonists and RCE explorers, tearing him in each direction while demanding an unreasonable level of neutrality, ate at Holden’s humanity like termites. 

Amos watched like a spectator through the bulletproof glass that shielded him from human emotion as Holden shrunk under this assignment. But sometimes, Amos let his guard down, and Holden wormed his way in a little bit. That would explain why Amos was going out of his way to celebrate a grown-ass man’s birthday, just because he was stressed. He justified it by reminding himself that the celebration would involve a whole lot of sex, but he knew it went further than that. Amos hated seeing Ilus weigh down the bags under Holden’s eyes. If he could lift the captain’s spirits just a little bit, he’d do anything it took. 

So maybe Amos had a little bit of a soft spot for Holden. He’d knock somebody’s teeth out if they said something about it, so he figured he still qualified as a badass motherfucker. 

According to Naomi, Holden’s birthday was March twenty-third, which gave Amos about three days to plan. 

####  **Holden**

They’d been on Ilus for about a month, if Holden was counting correctly. It felt like years, and also days. Disasters came in bursts. Things would go smoothly for a little while, then everything would go wrong in an instant— immediate and shocking like the piercing chill of getting ripped from a hot tub and thrown into a swimming pool. 

The weight of the world once again rested on Holden’s shoulders, and there was nothing he could do about it. For the millionth time, he needed to be in control of a situation no one could possibly have control over. 

Holden’s mind was a lot clearer once he hooked up with Amos. The big guy grounded him, comforted him in a way he needed. He wasn’t nurturing by any measure, but his embrace felt like home-away-from-home. The sex they had was comforting in its own right, too. Not because it was gentle, or loving, or romantic— Holden and Amos would probably both hate it if it was— but because it allowed Holden to forget the world and melt into Amos. He could give up control completely for a little while, let Amos be in charge.

On top of all the inherent stressors of Ilus and the two groups of volatile, passionate individuals that inhabited First Landing, Holden was burdened with guilt. Sometimes, it was guilt that he was having sex with Amos. Naomi had given him permission to have sex with Amos, and had reassured him on multiple occasions that she was more than okay with the arrangement, but he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling that she was only allowing it as a favor to him, or for fear that she’d lose him if she didn’t. He knew, on an intellectual level, that it was a stupid, self-centered thing to think, but until he could wrap his head around how the hell someone who loved him so much could be okay with him fooling around with someone else, it was what he could understand.

When he wasn’t feeling guilty about having sex with Amos, he felt guilty that he wasn’t feeling guilty about it. Even if his worries that Naomi didn’t really want this were unfounded, he still had them. He feared that Naomi hated him having sex with Amos, and he was having sex with Amos anyway. He knew it was wrong, and selfish, and he wasn’t going to stop. He was having too much fun getting close to his mechanic, both in bed and out of it. He shouldn’t be allowed to feel this good without Naomi. 

He knew these thoughts would be rejected immediately if he brought them up to Naomi or Amos, so they stewed inside of him. 

“Are you still feeling sorry for yourself, kid?” Miller said as he appeared, glitching into visibility. The protomolecule ghost apparition always seemed to appear when he wasn’t wanted, and disappear when he was needed. “You know, I’ve never met a guy getting laid as often as you are who was so goddamn angsty about it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Holden dismissed. 

“What crawled up your ass? Besides Amos’s massive dick?” Holden made a face at that. He never liked it when Miller got sexual. 

“You’re in my head. Don’t you know the answer to that?”

“Honestly, even I can’t make sense of it. It appears you’re bummed because you’re getting everything you want. That doesn’t add up.” 

“I was hoping you could explain it to me.” 

“You just can’t let yourself be happy, can ya?” 

“Not without Naomi, I can’t,” Holden said. Miller’s hum was disapproving. 

“I don’t know Naomi very well,” he said, “but I don’t think she’d appreciate being used to justify your self-deprecating bullshit.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It’s not about her. She’s a good excuse. If you make it about her, it seems noble. Romantic. But it’s not about her. You don’t feel guilty for cheating on Naomi, because you’re not cheating on Naomi. You feel guilty because you’re happy, and you don’t think you deserve to be.” Holden processed that slowly. He wanted to argue, but it was hard to refute a guy who was in his mind on a matter of what was happening in his mind. Dejected, Holden sat on the mattress he shared with Amos and put his head in his hands. 

“It would be really fucked up if the thing that made me happy was being fucked within an inch of my life by my mechanic-slash-friend-slash-dom, instead of being loved unconditionally by the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met, right?” He looked up at Miller, who shrugged with his hands. It was a very Belter gesture. Very Miller. 

“It’s not one or the other, Jim,” he said with a softness that was notably un-Miller. Miller didn’t call him Jim. “You’re happy because you can have both. Humans, with your stupid little brains and your sweaty little bodies, evolved with this need to be loved. The majority of you somehow misinterpreted that to mean you have to find one person to give you everything forever. That’s bullshit.”

“Naomi is everything, forever,” Holden protested. He hated the notion that his thing with Amos implied that Naomi wasn’t enough for him. She was. Amos was separate. 

“Naomi is a lot of things. Naomi loves you like you need to be loved. She’s honest, but she’s gentle about it. She challenges you, holds you to a high standard. Makes you human, when sometimes the world tricks you into thinking you’re more than that.”

“She’s the love of my life.”

“No one in their right mind would doubt it, kid. But Amos. Amos appeals to the animal in you. He’s blunt. Crass. Tears you apart and leaves a mess in his wake. Like the huge bruise on your ass.” 

“Do you watch me change?” Holden interrupted. Miller rolled his eyes. 

“No, pretty boy. But I can read your thoughts, and every time you sit down you’re reminded that he branded you with those big, powerful mitts of his, and it makes you fucking feral.” 

“So, what? Naomi is my humanity and Amos is my… animality?” he asked. Miller swiped the air in a dismissive gesture. 

“No. Naomi is Naomi, and Amos is Amos. They’re not extensions of yourself, you egomaniacal little pissant.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Holden defended, frowning. 

“Take it up with your own self-esteem. I’m you,” Miller said. Holden tilted his head and squinted.

“I thought you were the protomolecule. And Miller.”

“I’m the protomolecule, and Miller, and you.”

“Fine. So _I_ think I’m an egomaniacal pissant? Isn’t that contradictory?” 

“Kid,” he said, sitting on the mattress next to Holden, “your mind is a cesspool of incohesive sewage and I am burdened every day by the sisyphean task of wading through it.”

“Joe Miller, the rat king of my garbage mind. Comforting.”

“More like rat librarian. You’re the rat king, baby boy.” Holden grimaced. 

“That’s so unsexy when you say it.” 

“Not my job to get you off,” Miller said, his smile disappearing back into his regular nonchalant countenance. 

“Was Miller into me?” Holden asked after a beat, and it was jarring even to himself. The ghost narrowed his eyes. 

“I can’t tell if you’re really as narcissistic as you come off, or if you’re just so horny that you honestly can’t imagine someone not wanting to put their dick in you.” 

“Amos asked me once if you and I ever hooked up. Was it a possibility?”

“Miller was usually drunk enough to put out for whoever asked. Didn’t get asked a lot, but he wasn’t picky.”

“Was he attracted to me?”

“Not actively, no. He looked at you and saw the person he wanted to be, the person he maybe could’ve been, if it weren’t for a lot of bad choices and booze. Fucking you probably would’ve made him feel like a pervert.”

“Enough not to do it?”

“Probably not.”

“Did he like guys?”

“What an Earther question. Like, ‘what was the name of your first pet?’ or ‘how old are you?’ So very Terran. A mouth's a mouth, tumang. You have a nice mouth. And from what I hear, you like to choke. So sure, Miller would’ve put his cock in you.” 

“If you’re part me, did I just say I have a nice mouth?”

“No, that’s all Miller. Not that you don’t know you have a nice mouth, you narcissistic twat.” He paused, then added: “and don’t think I don’t know that nothing gets your pathetic little dick hard like being degraded.” 

“I thought it wasn’t your job to get me off?” 

“It’s not. But I can turn you on,” he said, and then he disappeared in a cloud of fireflies, the teasing bastard. No conversation had ever given Holden so much clarity and left him so confused at the same time. On the one hand, he was feeling a little less guilty about sleeping with Amos. On the other, he maybe just got really hard thinking about being degraded by Joe Miller, which was a lot. 

####  **Amos**

It was too hot to do manual labor, so instead Amos claimed space for himself in a secluded area and cleaned his gun. It was in pieces in front of him when his comm beeped, and he accepted the connection from Holden. 

“Something wrong?” was his greeting. He didn’t think he’d ever received a phone call from Holden on Ilus unless something was wrong. 

“No,” Holden said, his voice breathy. There was a long pause while Amos waited for more information, but it didn’t come. 

“Why’d you call?” Amos prompted. It was weird for anyone to start a phone call with silence, especially Holden. Holden liked to hear himself talk. Amos could vaguely hear Holden’s stilted breaths, and it was suddenly clear what was happening.

“I wanted to hear your voice,” answered Holden vaguely. 

“So you’re either being held at gunpoint and confessing your love for me or you’re jerking off. Say ‘donkey balls’ if it’s a hostage situation.” 

“That would be totally unhelpful in a hostage situation.”

“You’re jerking off, then. You want me to come lend a hand?”

“Just wanna hear you.” 

“How romantic.”

“Don’t want romance. Tell me everything you hate about me.” That was interesting. Amos had been around the block a few times. There weren’t many things he’d never been asked to do in bed. ‘Tell me everything you hate about me’ was a first.

“Are you going through some kind of crisis I should be aware of before I indulge this?” As a rule, Amos didn’t punish Holden when Holden felt he needed punishing. He didn’t hit Holden, degrade him or rough him up as a punishment. He did it because Holden liked it, it drove him crazy, and it was fucking fun. 

“I want you to be mean to me.” 

“I got that. Why?”

“Because I’m hard as a fucking rock and nothing will make me come better than you telling me how pathetic it is that nothing will make me come better than you telling me I’m pathetic. Please.” That was a good enough reason, however incoherently worded. Amos took a second to figure out how to play this. There wasn’t anything he really hated about Holden, but he knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He couldn’t be nice, but he didn’t want to strike a nerve, either, accidentally stumble on one of Holden’s deep, dark insecurities and make him cry in a not-sexy way. Holden wanted to play a game. It happened to be a game Amos was excellent at. He chose his words carefully, and left his tone apathetic. 

“What’s in it for me?” 

“I don’t—”

“You don’t know,” he interrupted disapprovingly, like a teacher scolding a student. 

“I didn’t think it through that far,” he said, and Amos heard the panic in it. Good. 

“So you get to jerk your pretty little cock in our bed, meanwhile I do all the work and get nothing?” 

“No, I—” 

“So fucking greedy, little boy.” And also the kindest, most selfless man Amos had ever known, but he didn't say that. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Put your fingers in your mouth, I don’t want to hear you.” There was a wimpish hum that indicated he’d obeyed. 

Amos thought for a second, his dick making its interest known in his boxers. He pictured Holden’s face, eyes wide and wet blinking up at him like a doll, his fingers like a pacifier between his pouty lips. He pictured Holden’s legs, spread wide on display for no one to see, simply because he loved to be on display. He pictured Holden’s cock, hard and pink, drooling in his hand. Completely at Amos’s mercy. 

He looked around. He was behind the generators on a sleeping mat under the hot sun. He was the only one who dared to be outside at the hottest hour of the hottest day so far on Ilus. Even if there were others around, the hulking machines that powered the settlement would conceal him from view and muffle his voice with their irregular mechanical rattle. 

Amos hummed, pretending to be scrolling a long mental list of things he hated about Holden, when, really, he was just having fun making Holden wait as he imagined how pretty and desperate he looked. 

“Let’s see,” he stalled. 

“Please, Amos,” he said, his fingers doing little to muffle the sound. Amos shushed him, a quick and harsh sound that passed between grated teeth. 

“You talk so fucking much,” he said, like he was angry, “and never listen. I should keep a ring gag on you. Nice big plastic ring forcing your mouth open for my fat cock and nothing else. Finally make some good use out of you.” But then he wouldn't get to hear the sound of Holden's voice, which he was really starting to love. 

“Please,” Holden said again, an intentional act of insubordination that would not go unpunished, though it was a beautiful sound. 

“You really don’t know the meaning of ‘shut up,’ do you? You choke on so much cock, you’d think you’d be hoarse by now, yet you keep fucking talking. What do I have to put in your mouth? A pacifier? My fucking boot? Maybe I’ll let you suck on my rim, I know how hungry you are for my asshole, you dirty fucking freak.” 

The broken noise Holden let out told Amos he’d struck gold. So Holden wanted to be called a freak. Amos didn’t really think he was a freak. So, he liked to be degraded a little bit. It made sense. The guy had a lot of power and celebrity that he didn’t want anything to do with. He was at the top of a food chain that he didn’t believe should even exist. It was exhilarating to be taken down a peg. It was nothing Amos hadn’t seen a million times from a million guys who were a lot less virtuous than Holden was. But if Holden wanted to be slut-shamed, Amos could give that to him. 

“Oh, you like that, don’t you, dirty boy?" _Perfect, wholesome, virtuous boy,_ his mind corrected. "You like jerking your prick while I tell you how fucking disgusting you are?” Amos taunted. Holden said nothing, though Amos knew he wanted to. Obedient, when he wanted to be. “Answer me.” 

“Yes, fuck yes.” Amos didn’t know how the next thing he’d say would go over, but he wanted to try it. 

“What would Naomi think, if she saw you right now? Horny like a bitch in heat from nothing but the sound of me telling you how much you disgust me?” As if Holden could ever disgust him. 

“Amos,” Holden moaned, and he didn’t know if it was meant to be a warning to stop or a plea to continue. He imagined it was meant to be the former but came out as the latter. Amos pushed it further, lying through his teeth while his mind continued to supply loving contradictions to everything he claimed. 

“Her perfect, pristine boy, absolutely ruined by me." Though not even Amos could sully his perfection. "You think she’ll still want you, now that you’re so used?" Though he was still gorgeously tight every time he spread his legs. "Or will she take one look at your bruised asscheek and gaping hole and know that you’re worthless?" Though he was worth the whole fucking universe. "Your little pussy’s so ruined by now, you’re lucky I still pity you enough to give you what you need." Though he would be grateful until the day he died to be the thing Holden needed. "No one else would want that sloppy, ruined little cunt.” Though everyone in the galaxy wanted Holden, and Amos had won the lottery getting to have him.

Amos recognized the sound of Holden spilling for him, a low moan from the back of his throat and an obscenity whispered breathlessly and involuntarily. Amos listened as he panted through it, but didn’t say anything else. His erection was a hard, neglected line in his pants as he imagined Holden coming down from his orgasm. He always looked good coated in come. 

“You’re scary good at that,” Holden said eventually.

“Must be, you didn’t last very long.”

“Sorry. I was hard for a pretty long time before I got the nerve to call you. Needed it really fucking bad.” 

“You were nervous to have phone sex with me?” 

“I thought you might be weirded out. Asking you to be mean to me is not exactly normal phone sex stuff.”

“No such thing as normal sex. Just boring sex and fun sex.”

“Was it fun?”

“Yeah. Where did that even come from?” 

“You’re going to really think I’m a freak if I tell you.” Amos rolled his eyes and blew out a breath. The sex was fun, but it would be a lot more fun if Holden wasn’t always second-guessing it. 

“You got a thing for little kids I don’t know about?”

“What? No, gross.” 

“Teenagers?”

“I’m not a pedophile, Amos.” 

“Rapist? Abuser?”

“No, what the fuck?”

“Then I ain’t gonna think you’re a freak. I’m down for anything consensual and between adults. There ain’t nothing you could say that’ll scare me.” 

“Miller got my dick hard telling me what an self-important little ant he thinks I am, and I was kind of using you to chase that high,” Holden admitted with guilt in his voice. Amos didn’t know how he felt about being used like that, but it was hot, so he didn’t protest. Besides, the headline was Holden getting hard for Miller. 

“Ghost-fucker, that’s a new one.”

“I didn’t fuck him, and he’s not a ghost.” 

“Right, he’s an alien. Is that better?”

“It’s not him. It’s... his attitude. He’s an asshole. Couldn’t care less about me, isn’t capable of it. I’m a tool he’s using to achieve a goal.”

“And that makes your dick hard.”

“Apparently,” said Holden. Amos tried not to think about the implications of that, what it meant about what Holden thought about him. He failed. Holden liked soulless. It explained what he saw in Amos. If only he knew what loving praise went through his head every time he degraded Holden. Maybe Holden wouldn't want him any more if he did. 

“Good to know.” 

“Why don’t you come home and make use of my, what did you call it? Sloppy, ruined little cunt?” Amos could hear the lascivious smile in his voice. They both laughed. 

“Are you sloppy for me?” 

“Not yet. You want me to be?” 

“Yeah, baby, get ready for me. I’m on my way.”


	2. Two days before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this series is a love(?) story told in picnics

_Two days before_

####  **Holden**

The next day wasn’t any less hot. 

Amos was laying shirtless out on a blanket under the sun, tan skin glistening with sweat. Holden resisted the urge to trail kisses from the small of his back to his shoulders, tasting the salt of his skin and breathing in the scent of it. Had Amos and Holden been alone on Ilus, their mission would’ve gone a lot differently. But then, it would probably have been more of a vacation than an assignment. 

“Hey, Cap,” Amos said. “Sit.” Holden obeyed and gave into the temptation to drag a finger teasingly down his spine. “Didn’t peg you for a PDA guy.” Holden yanked his hand back like he’d been burned. 

“I’m not.” 

“Relax, no one gives a shit. ‘Could blow you right here.” 

“I’m pretty sure people would give a shit if I pulled my dick out in the middle of the settlement.” 

“Might make people hate you less.” Holden knew the people there hated him, but he didn’t like Amos confirming it aloud. 

“How exactly would public indecency make people stop blaming me for ruining their chances at restarting their lives on a new planet?”

“You got a good dick,” is all he said. Holden rolled his eyes, but smiled a little at Amos’s lewd simplicity. 

“You know, I think that’s the only compliment you’ve ever given me that wasn’t during sex.” 

“I thought you wanted me to be mean to you. Now you want compliments?” 

“No. It’s just jarring. You’re not exactly a complimentary guy.” 

“I put my dick in you all the time. That’s not proof enough I think you’re hot shit?” Holden smiled bigger and put his hand on Amos’s back. Amos shimmied it away in rejection. “Too goddamn humid, brother.”

“Right, sorry,” he said, taking his hand back and immediately missing the connection. “I’ll just enjoy the view.” 

Amos’s arms were big and crossed under his head. Holden wanted to map the tattoos on his glistening flesh like a very horny cartographer. He regularly wondered what the ink signified to Amos, but never asked. Holden figured the answer was either deep and meaningful and none of his business, or something along the lines of ‘I just think they’re cool.’ Either way, Amos’s answer would be a rejection, so he added it to the long list of things he didn’t ask. 

“You’re so horny,” Amos pointed out. Holden must’ve been leering. 

“You’re shirtless and sweaty,” Holden said, meaning ‘duh.’ Amos’s muscles rippled under his skin, and it went straight to Holden’s cock. 

“You’re fun when you’re horny. Less uptight.” 

“I like to think I would be a fun guy if the sky wasn’t always collapsing around me. Or if it wasn’t my job to pick up the pieces.” 

“You’d find a way to feel responsible for it, anyway.” 

“Yeah. I’m good at that.” 

“Take your shirt off. Tan with me.” 

“How do you know this planet’s sun will make you tan? Maybe it’ll turn you green.”

“Are you afraid of relaxing or afraid of other people seeing you relax?” Amos asked, ignoring the stupid question. Holden contemplated that. The answer was probably both. He wished he could relax, but he had no doubt in his mind that he’d feel guilty for it after. That, and Amos was right that he didn’t want to look like he was relaxing while everyone on the planet suffered. It wasn’t like there was anything to do about the suffering at the moment, but it would look tacky to relax in spite of it. He wondered if anyone actually cared.

Holden looked around at the settlement. People were mostly indoors, taking advantage of the shade. It was too hot to accomplish much of anything. There had been handfuls of people coming and going, walking to the commissary to buy drinks, heading to the clinic for meds, playing outside with their kids. No one was doing anything productive. He resigned to the fact that there was nothing to do, and took his shirt off. 

“Good boy,” Amos praised, and that was definitely less sexy when they weren’t having sex. Amos turned over onto his back to face Holden, cupping his hand like a visor over his eyes to shield them from the sun. “When’s the last time you took a beach vacation?” 

“This isn’t a beach. This is the dusty floor of a foreign planet that wants me dead.” 

“Tomato, tomato,” he said, pronouncing both words the same. “Lay down.” Holden laid on his back, same as Amos. Amos trailed his fingers over Holden’s abs. Holden swatted him away, painful as it was to lose the touch. 

“If you get me hard in the middle of the fucking town, I’m not putting out for you tonight.”

“You could get hard from me touching your stomach?” he asked, looking way too proud of himself. 

“When you’re shirtless and sweaty? I could get hard from you looking at me the right way.” He turned over onto his stomach. It was bad enough that he was shirtless in the middle of the colony, but he didn’t need his erection building another temporary settlement in his pants. He tried and failed to relax. 

####  **Amos**

Holden kept looking at his hand terminal, which was the opposite of relaxing. 

“You better be either watching porn or sexting your girlfriend on that thing.”

“Reading an email from Avasarala.”

“Yeah? What’s she wearing?” 

“If I had to guess? A sari and a scowl that could kill a puppy for wagging its tail.” 

“Hot,” said Amos, adjusting his dick in his pants, less because he was turned on and more because he wanted to rile Holden up a little. 

“You got a thing for older women?” 

“I got a thing for people with power. And dirty mouths. What’s she saying?”

“She’s pissed about the transmission delay. All the information she has is too old for her to do anything about it. Add that to the list of uncontrollable things that are somehow my responsibility to control,” Amos blinked. Amos thought it was pointless to worry about things he couldn’t control, but something told him that saying ‘stop doing that’ was not the thing that would get Holden to stop doing that. 

“Would it help if I let you control me a little? Top?”

“Your solution to the restrictive laws of light travel is letting me put my dick in your ass?” 

“It’s what I got to offer.”

“No, it wouldn’t help.” He was quiet for a little while, not scrolling through his emails, but still staring at his comm. “Could be fun, though,” he said eventually. “You’d let me?”

“Fuck, yeah.” There were very few things he wouldn’t let Holden do. He’d let Holden figure that out on his own. “You wanna get a little dominant with me?”

“No, not really,” he said. He was laughing, and Amos didn’t know why. “But I’d put it in you, if you want me to.”

“How generous,” Amos deadpanned. Holden shook his head, still smiling. 

“You’ve got a great ass, Amos. I’d be fucking ecstatic to get the privilege of fucking you. But you’re in charge. I’ll be good and fuck you, if you let me.”

“So, not a dom. Understood.”

“Very much not a dom.” 

Amos’s mind filled the following silence with insecurity, which was unfamiliar. He wondered, for the second time in two days, if Holden only wanted him because he was big and scary and soulless. Holden wanted to be fucked brutally, dominated without remorse, and Amos was just the guy to give it to him. He’d known that all along. Holden didn’t give him any illusion that this was more than that, and Amos didn’t want it to be. He usually didn’t mind being used like that, and didn’t know what about it left a bad taste in his mouth. He would still want Holden if Holden didn’t want to be used like a fucktoy. Maybe it hurt to come to terms with the fact that Holden might not want Amos if Amos didn’t want to use him like that. He didn’t know why it would. 

He didn’t need Holden to love him, but he needed him to trust him. He couldn’t just be the whip Holden used to flog himself because he felt like he needed to be punished. 

“What if I wanna do it a little different?” Amos said instead of admitting his insecurity.

“I’ll do anything you want, man. If you want me to dominate you, I’ll try my best. I just can’t promise to like it,” Holden said, like it was a lighthearted joke and not a manifestation of Amos’s worst nightmare. It unlocked a darkness in him like flipping off a switch. Amos sat up.

Dark memories flickered at the corners of Amos’s mind. He didn’t let them in. He replaced them, as he always did, with a promise to never force or coerce a person to do something they didn’t like. A commitment to unequivocal, informed, enthusiastic consent. The very idea of Holden doing something he didn’t like just because Amos wanted it made bile well up in the back of his throat. The idea of not knowing Holden didn’t like something until after it was done, of losing Holden’s trust because he couldn’t tell the difference between a good scream and a bad scream, of misreading a social cue and hurting Holden beyond repair— terrified Amos to his core. 

“Don’t you dare do something you don’t like just to please me. Ever.” 

“I like pleasing you,” Holden said lightly, sitting up as well and placing his hand on Amos’s thigh. Amos put his hand on Holden’s and squeezed. Hard. 

“I need to know you’ll stop me if I go too far. Will you?” Holden looked down at their joined hands, Amos’s gripped like a vice around Holden’s, but didn’t make an effort to escape his grasp. 

“What do you mean ‘go too far?’”

“Hurt you.” 

“I like it when you hurt me.” 

“If I hurt you too much. Touch you in a way you don’t like. Say something that hurts your feelings. Anything. I need to know you’ll stop me. I need to know that I won’t find out I went too far because you can’t look at me anymore after.”

“I’ll stop you if you go too far, Amos,” he said, and Amos released his hand. “Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his eyes glossy and unfocused, his voice raspy and low. Holden would never understand the weight behind it, the existential fear packed in every whispered word. It was more than ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ It was ‘I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m so, so paralyzingly scared that I will.’ 

“Oh. Okay,” Holden said. Amos couldn’t tell what Holden was thinking, but he knew it was a misunderstanding of the truth. “You wanna go slower? You don’t have to dominate me. I don’t have to be your sex toy. I can just be your... I don’t know, sex partner?” So Holden had taken ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ to mean ‘I don’t want to hit you.’ That wasn’t what Amos meant, but Holden’s response answered a question Amos needed the answer to, anyway.

“Would you hate that?” Amos said. It was a test. He didn’t want to stop dominating Holden. But, as it turned out, it was important to him that Holden would still want him if he did. 

“Are you kidding? Sex with you is fucking awesome, Amos, fuck. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I get to do it. If you want vanilla, I can do that. Might beg you to pull my hair a _little_ bit, though.” Amos let out a sigh of relief. 

“Fuck that. I’ll give you what you need, baby boy.” 

“And you’ll like it?”

“Yeah.” 

“Good. So will you tell me what the fuck that was?” 

“I don’t know. It’s fucking hot out here. Temper tantrum,” he dismissed, laying back down. He didn’t want to make it a whole thing. 

“That’s the most you’ve talked to me about this thing we've been doing since the day it started. Do we need to have a conversation?” 

“You wanna have the ‘define the relationship’ talk with me, Jim?”

“I don’t know, Burton. Are you going to throw a temper tantrum and reveal some deep insecurity I didn’t know about every time it gets hot out?” 

“No. I just got the one.”

“Okay. I trust you, but I will stop you if ever I can’t take the pain anymore.” Amos tensed up again. 

“No, fuck. You still don’t get it.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t want you to wait until you can’t take it anymore to stop me. Stop me when you don’t like something. Immediately, before I do it or as soon as possible.”

“Okay. I promise I’ll stop you if I don’t like something. I just don’t really imagine the situation coming up. You’ve been really fucking good to me.” 

“There are bruises on your asscheek that tell a different story.” 

“Bruises I begged you for. You’ve never done anything I didn’t like.”

“I never will,” he said, not believing himself. 

“I have never doubted that. I wish you didn’t, either.”

“You still think that I’m a good guy, after all the bad I’ve done.” 

“You still think you’re a bad guy, after all the good you’ve done,” Holden threw back. 

“You don’t know me. At all.” 

“I don’t know who you used to be. I don’t give a shit. I know who you are now.” 

“Who’s that? Your boyfriend?” 

“No,” he said like the idea tasted bad. “I thought we weren’t defining the relationship.” 

“Just making sure you’re not getting any wrong ideas.” 

“Sex plus friendship don’t equal love, right?” Holden said, borrowing Amos’s words from the first night they spent together. Or, _together._

“Right. God, fuck. Maybe I’m the one who needs to relax.” 

“It’s hot out.” 

✧✧✧

“I hate to break up the party, but I believe we have a problem, Mr. Holden,” sounded the worst voice in the entire world. 

“Fucking Murtry,” Amos muttered, not under his breath. 

“I hope you two have enjoyed your stay at the nude beach. Meanwhile, there is an assassination conspiracy brewing among the Belters.” 

“Assassination of whom?” Holden said, skeptical.

“Myself.” 

“Don’t you have to be important to get assassinated?” Amos taunted. Murtry growled low in his throat and raised a mean eyebrow, the picture of villainy. 

“A murder attempt, then.”

“Who’s trying to kill you, Murtry?” Holden asked, pulling on his shirt. Amos liked shirtless Holden a lot better. 

“Besides me,” Amos joked. Holden elbowed him. 

“I don’t know, exactly. But my team is taking the threat very seriously, and I expect you will, too, if you would like my continued cooperation.” 

“What I’ve seen thus far, that’s your idea of cooperation?” Holden asked. 

“It could get a lot worse.” 

“What do you need from us?” 

“Surveillance. Maybe a little bit of espionage.” 

“Sexy,” said Amos. Holden elbowed him again. 

“I don’t want anyone else to die, and for some reason that still includes you,” said Holden. “But protecting your life can’t mean taking your side. I have to remain neutral in this or it gets more hostile than it already is.” 

“Which is exactly why I need you. You’re the best hope I’ve got of talking to these people, figuring out who wants me dead.”

“It would be easier to figure out who doesn’t,” said Amos.

“Then figure out who’s got means and opportunity,” he barked. 

“What leads you to believe someone’s trying?” Holden asked.

“Besides, you know, the fact that you deserve it,” Amos added. 

“How do you tolerate this man?” Murtry asked Holden. 

“I’m a great cocksucker,” Amos said. Murtry grimaced. It was barely readable, considering his face was always kind of grimacing. Holden's eyes squeezed shut in disappointment.

“He may have a big mouth,” Holden said, pointing the words at Amos like a weapon, “but he’s got a big heart, too.” 

“And a really big—” 

“Amos,” Holden barked. Amos pantomimed zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key, then shrugged innocently. 

“How sweet,” Murtry said through his teeth. “Can I count on you?”

“Sure. What’s the plan?” 

Amos tuned out and focused on the movement of Holden’s lips, but the gist was that they had to talk to some people and then camp out under the stars and make sure no one was up to anything nefarious.

“Wei doesn’t know the names of the Belters she overheard, but she can point them out to you.” 

Holden looked at Amos like that should mean something to him. 

“We’ll talk to her,” Holden said. “Anything else?”

“No. I’ll be on the lookout, too. Report back with whatever you find. I want these conspirators brought to justice.” 

“If such conspirators exist, I’ll ensure there’s a trial,” Holden said, surely knowing a trial wasn’t what Murtry had in mind. Murtry rolled his eyes and left.

“So, sleepover under the stars tonight?” Amos said. 

“Looks like it. Can you please refrain from talking about blowing me while we’re working?”

“We’re always working.” 

“Yeah.”

“You’re no fun.” 

“I’m sorry you feel that way. Maybe I should stop waking you up with my lips around your cock in the morning,” Holden teased. 

“I take it back. You’re the funnest lay I ever had.” It was probably true. 

“How kind of you. Let’s go interrogate Wei, I guess.” 

“Are we really taking this seriously?” 

“I don’t want anybody else to die.” 

“Even Murtry?” 

“If somebody tries and fails to kill Murtry, and Murtry finds out who that is, he’s going to want revenge. It’ll mean a lot more death.” 

“But if somebody tries and succeeds to kill Murtry, that would solve a lot of our problems.” 

“No more deaths. Even people who fucking deserve it.” 

“Whatever you say, Cap.” 

####  **Holden**

It was much cooler once the sun had set. They laid out a blanket that was near enough to Murtry’s home base to see anyone coming, but far enough from it that it wasn’t suspicious.

Everyone had long since learned that Amos and Holden were fooling around. Despite Holden’s best efforts, they were mostly under the impression that the two of them were dating, so they didn’t bat an eye at the idea that they were sharing a night of romantic camping together. It helped their cover, even if it embarrassed the hell out of Holden, and not in the way he liked. 

They didn’t learn much from their day of undercover investigation. Wei’s intel was thin, and sounded more like a paranoid misinterpretation than an actual threat. She had heard a group of people shooting the shit about one of their peers, who was sick of Murtry’s shit like everyone else, only maybe a little more violently so. It wasn’t enough to know who the suspect was, and talking to the people Wei pointed out didn’t give them anything to go on. The investigation wasn’t the stuff of great detective novels. Amos and Holden didn’t come to the planet to be cops. Even if Holden believed the threat was real, they didn’t have much in the way of course of action. Their best bet in thwarting a murder attempt was catching the guy in the act, so they’d take turns keeping watch.

Despite Amos’s frequent attempts to get him to relax, Holden was laying against Amos and scrolling nervously through his emails once again. Amos sighed and plucked his hand terminal away and did something on it that Holden couldn’t see. A slow song he recognized as something Naomi listened to at night played from the speaker, and it comforted him, though it didn’t strike him as Amos’s style. 

“‘Slow jams to make love to?’” Holden mocked as he yanked his comm back into his own possession and looked at the screen. “Are you courting me?” 

“It’s an auto-curated playlist based on your music, Cap. It was this or club shit. Figured this would be more soothing. Put the thing down and relax with me.” Holden reluctantly parted from the screen. 

“Not my music, Naomi uses it more than I do.”

“Do you fuck her to this?” 

“No.” They’d played music in bed maybe once in their entire relationship. He preferred to focus on the sound of her voice. 

“Does _she_ fuck _you_ to this?”

“No. We don’t have sex boring enough that it requires a soundtrack.” Amos laughed, and nodded like he believed it. 

“Does it worry you that she has a sex playlist that isn’t for you?” he said, clearly just trying to rile him up. It didn’t work. 

“She likes the songs. Listens to it before bed sometimes. Besides, I like to think if Naomi was fucking somebody else, she’d have the courtesy to play music from her own comm.”

“Would you be okay with that?” Amos had never asked about his arrangement with Naomi. At least, not in such non-sexual terms. Holden was surprised to learn he was curious about it. 

“Since when do you butt into other people’s relationship business?”

“Since it involves fantasizing about putting my cock in your girlfriend.” That explained it. 

“I should kick your ass for that,” he said, but it turned him on. He felt guilty about it, but he fantasized about Amos fucking Naomi all the time. He wanted to lick Amos’s come out of her. 

“I would love to see you try to kick my ass.” That also turned him on. There wasn’t much Amos could say that didn’t turn him on. 

“I know I can’t stop you from thinking about fucking Naomi, but if you could keep it to yourself, I’d feel a lot better about it,” he lied. 

“Okay, I’ll let you keep pretending you wouldn’t cream your coveralls watching me fuck your girlfriend.” 

“Thanks.” 

“But you would.” 

“Yeah,” he agreed distantly, closing his eyes and nuzzling deeper into Amos’s chest. 

“Captain Jimmy Cuckolden,” Amos mused. Holden let out a sigh. 

“I wish I was more bothered by you calling me ‘Cuckolden’ than I am by you calling me ‘Jimmy.’” Amos just laughed and kissed him on the temple. Holden tilted his head to pull Amos in for a deeper kiss on the lips. Amos let out a satisfied hum. 

“Mmm, I love it when you kiss me, Jimmy.” Holden stopped kissing him. 

“None of that,” he said. Amos pulled him back into the kiss, and all of his objections melted away. 

“You didn’t answer my question before. Would you be okay with Naomi fucking somebody else?”

“We should probably focus on the task at hand,” Holden diverted. “Someone could come and try to kill Murtry.”

“I’m not that lucky. You and I both know no one is trying shit tonight. You’re out here so you can pretend you tried, and I’m out here because I want to put my dick in you, and because you can’t sleep alone or else Miller will show up and make you horny by calling you names.” 

“You’re not putting your dick in me outside, where anyone could see.” 

“Duh. I’m gonna wait until everyone’s asleep.” 

“We’ll see.”

“Why are you avoiding the question?” 

“I don’t want to invade her privacy. That, and I don’t think I know the answer.” 

“Didn’t you talk about it before we hooked up?”

“Yeah,” Holden said, letting Amos ask a specific question rather than following up with any further information. He didn’t really know what to say. 

“What are the ground rules?” 

“I can do pretty much whatever I want with you. I just have to be honest about it.”

“What about her?” 

“Are you asking as my friend, or as someone who wants to fuck her?” 

“Kind of both. Mostly the first thing.” Holden laughed and rolled his eyes. 

“If she wants to hook up with someone else, she’ll talk to me about it, and I have to have a good reason to say no.”

“Sounds fair,” he shrugged. Holden hoped that was the end of it. It wasn’t. “So why aren’t you sure about it?” 

“I get jealous. I don’t want to. I don’t have the right to. I still do. What kind of asshole does that make me?” 

“The kind of asshole that really loves his girlfriend?”

“Being possessive isn’t the same thing as love.” 

“No, it’s not. But you’re not being possessive. Possessive would be treating her badly because you’re jealous. You can’t control your feelings. Beating yourself up for being jealous ain’t gonna make you unjealous. But you can control your actions. Don’t be a dick to her.” Holden had never thought about the distinction between feeling jealous and acting possessive. He was comforted by Amos’s assessment. He would never, ever treat Naomi poorly because of his jealousy. Maybe he was allowed to stop feeling bad about it. 

“Where did you get all this sage relationship advice?”

“I know what it’s like to get treated bad. Naomi doesn’t deserve to. You treat her bad—”

“I know, you’ll cut my dick off and feed it to me.”

“No. You’d survive that. You hurt Naomi, you wouldn’t get away that easy.”

“You know, she’d probably be super offended by you pulling the whole big-brother-with-a-gun routine. She can defend herself.” 

“I know. She just better not have to. I got a lot more than one gun, and I could kill you with a lot less.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her,” Holden insisted quietly. 

“I know. Wish _you_ knew that.” 

“I know I wouldn’t hurt her on purpose. But what if this thing we’re doing is hurting her and I don’t know until it’s too late?” 

“She told you it was okay?” 

“Yes. But—” 

“You trust her?”

“Yes, but—” 

“Then trust her.” Holden sighed, knowing Amos was right. 

“Are you just saying that because it gets you laid?”

“No. I don’t need you to get me laid. I’m hot as shit, and everyone on this planet is horny as hell.”

“You are hot as shit,” Holden agreed, squeezing Amos’s bicep. Holden felt really lucky to be wanted by Amos. Amos could easily get laid elsewhere, with someone less complicated than he was. 

“Sex with you is never going to be more important to me than this family we have. If sex with you threatens what we have on the Roci, it ends.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“But as long as it doesn’t threaten what we have on the Roci? It’s fucking good.” 

“Yeah, it is.” 

“Don’t make problems where there aren’t any, Cap.” 

“I’m trying not to.”

“Let me take your mind off things,” he said, slinking below the blanket. Holden let himself forget they were outside and spread his legs. 


	3. The day before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once i read a tumblr post about why you can't make a butt plug with a 3D printer idk if it's true I did no follow-up research but here we are years later putting that information to use in a smutty expanse fanfic

_ The day before _

####  **Amos**

The sun was teasing at the horizon. Amos’s two-hour watch shift was up. He turned off the alarm that was set to arouse Holden from his short-lived slumber. He could be a lot more arousing. 

Holden woke up with Amos’s mouth around his morning wood, his sweats and boxers seated below his balls. 

“People are going to start waking up soon, Amos,” Holden said weakly. Amos pulled off. 

“Yeah, and they’ll all see what a slut you are for my mouth around your cock. Be good.” He resumed his task, taking Holden deep into his mouth with no preamble. Their morning sex was never as teasing as any other time. It was sloppy and lazy, and as close as they got to vanilla. This morning, however, vanilla wasn’t exactly what Amos had in mind. 

Holden was an exhibitionist. He didn’t act on the impulse, because he knew better, but the impulse to be watched was there. Amos didn’t have a lot of outlet to indulge that specific kink because of the consent issues with public sex, and the fact that he cared about Holden just enough to avoid ruining his career with a sex scandal. This was a perfect opportunity. There was no way anyone would be popping out of their homes at the New Terran equivalent of five in the morning on a hot day with nothing to do, and they were concealed enough and alert enough that they could stop before they were seen if anyone happened to. Amos didn’t want to actually get caught, but the threat of it was incredibly erotic, and he could wield it against Holden. 

“We shouldn’t,” Holden protested, pulling at Amos’s hair until he pulled off. 

“Relax, baby boy.” He soothed, kissing Holden on the side of his dick, then on his pubic bone, then trailing kisses up Holden’s torso. “Always so on edge. Lose control for me. Let me take care of you.” 

“But anyone could—” 

“Then we’ll be quick,” he said, stroking him teasingly with his fingertips as he laid a kiss on Holden’s nipple. Holden’s soft whine encouraged him to take the blushed peak between his lips and suck. 

“It’s a bad idea.” 

“I don’t know why you put up such a fight, when you’re so desperate for my mouth all over you.”

“Amos,” Holden whispered, either begging for more or begging him to stop. Amos didn’t give him either. He let the backs of his knuckles ghost over the underside of Holden’s pulsing erection, pressed another light kiss to his nipple, and ignored his plea. It wasn’t like Holden really wanted him to stop anyway. Amos could always tell the difference between a ‘no’ that meant ‘no’ and a ‘no’ that meant ‘I know I’m supposed to say no, but I really don’t want to say no,’ and Holden had a safe-word that he could use if ever he got it wrong. Amos was very practiced in the art of consensual dominance, and it wasn’t nearly as hard to tell when someone wanted you to stop as dirtbags who didn’t care made it out to be. 

“No, that’s not true. I do know why you fuss so much. You’re afraid the world will find out you’re a nasty, cock-hungry little slut, and you’re afraid you’d like the attention too much if they did.” Holden groaned his fake disagreement. “That turns you on, doesn’t it, freaky boy? You want me to call up Monica Stuart? Give her an exclusive? Tell her the UN’s sweetheart is so horny for his mechanic’s cock he’ll take it in the middle of town in broad daylight? Maybe we can get some video evidence.” 

“You said this would be quick. Is this little speech going to be over before the sun sets again?” 

“It will be quick. As soon as you ask nicely for it.” 

“You know you don’t need permission. I’m yours. Take what you want,” he said, and wasn’t that tempting? But he was on a mission to make Holden relax, and he’d decided at that moment that getting him to lose control and talk dirty was part of that. 

“Oh, I know. What I want is for you to tell me that you want me to make you come. No matter who comes outside and sees.” 

“I want you to make me come,” Holden said. Amos replaced his teasing knuckles with a loose grip, barely a step in the right direction. He looked at Holden with eyes that prompted more. “I want you to make me come and I don’t care who sees,” the captain corrected. Amos hummed, approving, but not completely satisfied. He sunk down lower and wrapped his mouth around the tip of Holden’s cock as he teased, pressing his tongue against the sensitive underside of the head. When he couldn’t stand the tease anymore, Holden took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let himself ramble: “I don’t care if the whole fucking universe knows that nothing turns me on like being your pathetic little plaything.” When Amos took him deeper into his mouth, Holden didn’t stop talking. “Shout it from the goddamn rooftop of the commissary. Release an official statement to the United Nations. Hold a press conference with Chrisjen Avasarala and the fucking protomolecule itself. I don’t care who knows. Tell everyone I belong to you, I belong on my hands and knees for you, completely at the mercy of your dirty fucking mouth and huge fucking hands and thick fucking cock.” 

That was a lot more than Amos expected, and it was a pleasant surprise. He rewarded the confession by taking Holden’s cock to the base, and pulling Holden’s sweats down around his ankles to rub the pad of his finger against his rim. As promised, Amos made him come quickly, then sat back with a mouthful of come and a sense of pride about the way he could control Holden with his cock like a steering wheel. Amos fed Holden’s load back to him with a sloppy kiss and laid back down next to him.

“I don’t really want you to broadcast our personal business to the entire galaxy, if that needs to be said.” 

“It doesn’t.” 

“But, as it turns out, I don’t mind the fantasy.”

“That’s not news.” 

“That was good. You’re really good. We’re really good, together.” 

“Not news, either.” 

“How are you so talkative in bed and then say basically nothing the rest of the time?” Holden asked. Amos shrugged, just to piss him off a little. “Come on.” 

“I’m not mute or nothin,’ I just don’t run my mouth unless I got shit to say.”

“I like talking to you.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I let you do most of the talking, and you like to talk.” 

“I don’t think that’s why. You’ve been talking to me a lot more than usual lately. I mean, yesterday we had, like, two whole conversations. I like it.” 

“Communication is important in BDSM. I care about consent more than I hate having serious conversations, that’s all.” Holden nodded and let that work through his brain for a second. 

“Is that what this is? BDSM?” 

“Sure, minus the bondage. I don’t like being tied up.” 

“I don’t think I would mind being tied up.” 

“I don’t like doing shit to you that I wouldn’t let you do to me. Feels bad.” ‘Bad’ was an understatement. It made him feel like a sadist, and he didn’t want to be a sadist. A sadist with a gun is a monster. 

“So you’d let me tell you you’re a worthless whore, good for nothing but being split open on my cock?” 

“Not ‘whore.’ ‘Slut,’ I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes,” is all he said, knowing the explanation would bum Holden out. He’d been a whore. He didn’t fantasize about going back. Holden didn’t press the matter. He’d gotten pretty good at knowing which of Amos’s buttons he could push to get answers, and which would make him self-destruct. 

“Would you like it? If I degraded you like that?”

“Would  _ you?” _

“No. But I want to know what you like.”

“It’s not my kink, but I’d let you.” 

“You freaked out at me yesterday because I said I’d do something I didn’t like just ‘cause you asked me to, and now you’re telling me you’d do something you don’t like just ‘cause I asked you to? How’s that fair?”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t like it. You talking dirty is my favorite fucking thing. If you wanted to throw a little slut-shaming in there, I’d get off to it. I just wouldn’t ask for it specifically, is all. You’re a good guy. I like that.”

“Aw,” Holden cooed. 

“Don’t,” Amos rejected. Holden looked like he was processing the compliment, which meant he was probably reading into it more than Amos wanted him to. 

“Thank you,” he eventually said, looking tentative. 

“For saying you’re a good guy?”

“No. For caring so much about consent.”

“Don’t thank me for doing the bare minimum. Hurt me if I ever don’t.”

“It just would be very easy to take advantage of me. I trust you. I’d let you. I don’t even know if I’d notice, I’m pretty fucking new at this.”

“You’d notice. Eventually, when it’s far too late to take it back. And then you’d hate me for it, which I’d deserve. But you’d also hate yourself for letting it happen, and you don’t deserve that. I don’t get off on taking advantage of people. If I hurt you, it’s because you like it. Please know that.” 

“You like it too, though, right?”

“Yes. But not because I’m some kind of sadist.”

“Then why?”

“I’m not a soul-searching kind of guy, Cap. It’s fun,” he explained. 

It wasn’t quite the whole truth, but he didn’t think Holden would take it the right way if he said what he really liked was figuring out what his partner needed him to be and being that. It would sound too much like ‘I’m doing this because you want me to, not because I want to.’ It was more like, ‘I’m doing this because you want me to, and you wanting to makes me want to.’ It was as selfish as it was selfless, as all good sex was, in Amos’s opinion. 

“I’m just saying,” Amos continued, “it wouldn’t be fun if you didn’t like it. I got no interest in abusing you. There’s a fine line between BDSM and abuse. I know how not to cross it. Don’t let somebody hit you if they don’t.” 

“I hate thinking about why you have so much personal, nuanced understanding of abuse.” 

“Don’t think about it.” 

“You can talk about it, if you want. I know I brush it aside, ‘cause it scares the shit out of me, but you can talk to me.” 

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Whatever you say,” Holden said, sing-songy in the way people say it when they don’t believe you. 

“I don’t dwell on the old shit. I fix the shit I can fix, and the rest is background noise. If I can’t control it, it’s not there.” 

“Smart.”

“You should try it.” 

“But what would fill the space in my brain that is constantly overwhelmed by useless stress about things I can’t fix?”

“Cock.”

“I can’t be thinking about cock all of the time.” 

“Why not? I do it.” 

_ “You _ somehow manage to do work and think about cock at the same time. I think about your cock for two minutes and I’m useless until it’s inside me. I mean, fuck, a week into this assignment I was basically out of commission for three days because I couldn’t stop thinking about how big your hands are, and Miller had to convince me to get over myself and get them on me.” 

“Really? You didn’t tell me that.” 

“It’s embarrassing. Tired and horny do not mix. I was functionally a teenager.” 

“I knew that part. I didn’t know I owed your alien ghost friend a debt of gratitude.” 

“Yeah, Naomi gave me permission, but I was still kind of freaking out about it. Seemed too good to be true.”

“Aw.”

“Don’t. It still seems too good to be true.”

“‘Too good to be true,’ my ass. Why isn’t any of the horrifically bad shit that happens to us on a regular basis ‘too bad to be true’? We’re on an extrasolar planet that God forgot, trying to kill the alien force that wiped out a galaxy-spanning species once and is probably going to do it again, while two groups of lunatic humans claw at each other’s throats and ours over nothing important in the scheme of things. That’s all true. But you get a fat cock splitting you open on the regular and that’s ‘too good?’ Don’t you deserve a win?” 

“I get a fat cock splitting me open and my girlfriend likes hearing the dirty details? It’s a pretty fucking spectacular win.” 

“She does?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Should I be on my best behavior then?” 

“No. I usually tone it down a little.” 

“Why?”

“Because ‘he fabricated a paddle from who-knows-what and beat the hell out of me with it and now there’s a massive bruise on my asscheek that might never go away’ would probably scare the shit out of her?” Amos smiled proudly. 

“It’ll go away. And I made it out of plastic. Doctor Okoye has a plastic printer.” 

“And you made a sex toy with it? Does she know?” 

“I didn’t tell her. And I deleted the program file after, but she might be suspicious.” 

“Could you make something else?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“A plug?” Holden said bashfully after a moment of hesitance.

“No.” 

“Why, you want to be the only thing that goes in my ass?”

“Nothing that romantic. Printed plastic is a porous material. So unless you want a whole lot of microabrasions in your asshole, it’s not gonna happen.” 

“Why do you know that?”

“You think I’m the kind of guy who looks at a 3D printer and doesn’t immediately do research on how to make a sex toy for free?” 

“That’s fair. Shouldn’t there be microabrasions on my ass from the paddle?”

“I finished it with wax. Wax that should not go inside your asshole, either, before you ask.” 

“Bummer.” 

“I could print a plastic mold and make a plug out of resin. I’d have to see what materials we have on the Roci. It’s not typical spaceship stuff but Mickeys are always way over-prepared, there’s a lot of shit on that ship you could go a million years without. Maybe on the way back to Tycho I’ll make you something.”

“You have a very brilliant mind.” 

“I’m talking about making a sex toy. It’s hardly rocket-science.” 

“But you can do that, too.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Rocket ships are easy. It’s people Amos doesn’t get. 

“We don’t give you enough credit for how smart you are.”

“I don’t need credit. I do what I gotta do. If I do it right, you never have to know I did anything. If I do it wrong, the ship falls outta the sky,” Amos said matter-of-factly. Holden raised his eyebrows, so he corrected himself. “Metaphorically speaking. Literally, it’s a lot more violent than that.” 

“Well, I appreciate it.”

“Okay, little weirdo. Come cuddle me before it gets too hot again.” 

####  **The Investigator**

It reaches out, it reaches out, it reaches out— 

He was once again ripped from his investigation by the needy human that pulled at his reigns. The protomolecule, or so the ants dubbed it, was ancient and boundless in its complexity. The Investigator was a tool to enact its will, an  infinitesimal fraction of its vastness, and he was still infinitely larger than the cocksucking brat that kept him on a short leash to act as his therapist. But he needed the little thing. He had a big ego, but he had hands, which was more than The Investigator could say about himself. 

Holden was tucked under Amos’s arm, watching the sky change colors like that was some miraculous thing that didn’t happen every day as the sun finished its journey from rising to risen. Amos had fallen back to sleep. Holden was comforted by the big guy’s breathing, walking his fingers over the hand that draped over his shoulder. It was quaint, and very human. Unrequited love, or some version of it. A tale as old as humanity, but much, much, younger than time. 

“Look at you, happy camper,” The Investigator teased.

“What do you want?” What he wanted was to leave, but he was compelled to Holden by some force, a captive angel on his shoulder. 

“I don’t know. You’ve been using me to work through your issues.”

“You mean I… willed you here?” 

“I certainly didn’t will me here. I got work to do, kid. I’m not your fairy godfather. Unlike you, I care more about saving the universe than I do about you getting your ass fucked.” 

“I care plenty. Do you need me to do something?” If he could get back to work, he’d have an answer to that. 

“Not yet. But I’ll let you know. So why am I here? Make it quick.”

“I don’t know. I think I’m good right now. Relaxed. Happy.” 

“Maybe you needed to say that out loud.” What an epic waste of time. 

“Maybe.”

“Great. Can I go now? Or do you need to tell me about anything else I don’t give a shit about?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure? Maybe you’re constipated.”

“Nope.”

“Thinking about going vegan?”

“I’m good, you can—” Miller was yanked from the conversation, which meant someone was near. Finally, he could get back to work. 

—It reaches out, it reaches out, it reaches out. 

####  **Elvi**

Just as she was every morning, Elvi was the first out of her shelter, barely after the sun rose. She was on her way to the commissary to get some work done. She had reports to type up, the easiest and worst part of her job, and she didn’t like to work from her bed. The tables in the commissary were more suitable for productivity. Or they would be, if the real reason she spent so much time there wasn’t that she liked to be close to Holden. She told herself that was so she didn’t get left out of the loop any more than she already was, but that was secondary to how enticing she found him. 

Holden’s relationship— if you could call it that— with Amos was all kinds of confusing for Elvi. On one hand, it was spectacularly erotic. She didn’t have much interest in the big man, she was more into wit and charisma than she was into… whatever Amos was. But he was certainly attractive, and when paired with Holden, well, her prudence was no match for the overwhelming eroticism of that image. But on the other hand, she had no sympathy for cheaters, and Holden had a girlfriend on  _ the Rocinante. _

So when she saw them cuddling on a blanket in the middle of the settlement, she was all kinds of confused. Holden sat up out of Amos’s embrace as soon as he noticed her. 

“It’s probably not wise to be so exposed out here,” she said. Holden’s eyes widened and he looked down, like he didn’t know he was fully clothed, which had implications she didn’t want to think about. Not until she was in the comfort of her own home. 

“I meant, not in a shelter.” 

“Right, that,” he said awkwardly. “I figured we were close enough to shelter to get to safety if things went south.” 

“Maybe. But you can never be too safe. Are you on the lookout for something?” she asked, probably sounding like an idiot. 

“Can’t a guy camp out with his boyfriend and not be on the lookout for something?” They were boyfriends? She didn’t know what to do with that new data. 

“Your boyfriend?” 

“Something like that,” he said. She didn’t know what that meant. Maybe that hadn’t defined the relationship. “He’s been trying to get me to relax. What’s more relaxing than a romantic starlight picnic?” Perhaps a romantic starlight picnic with your girlfriend, whom you’re supposed to be committed to. 

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” she asked, and immediately regretted it. “Sorry, that’s truly none of my business.” 

“I do have a girlfriend. I am madly in love with my girlfriend.” Yeah, right. 

“But not madly enough to go a couple months without shagging whomever’s available?” she accused. Holden looked surprised by that, but not quite offended. Confused, definitely. 

“How can you be so open-minded to the world around you and have such an archaic understanding of human relationships?” She frowned at the assessment, but didn’t refute his findings. She preferred ‘traditional’ to ‘archaic,’ but he wasn’t wrong. She hadn’t been in a lot of relationships. Married to her work, as they say. 

“Guess I don’t have a lot of experience with them. Work always came first.” 

“Humans evolved with a need to give and receive love. It’s in our DNA.” She raised a finger to interrupt, but Holden shot her down. “Don’t try to fact-check me on that, Doctor, I’m speaking metaphorically.” 

“I’ll allow it,” she said with a small smile. Holden nodded. 

“We’ve internalized this misconception that needing to be loved means that we need to find one perfect partner who can give us everything we need. If we don’t find that person, we’ve failed. It’s bullshit. Total fucking sewage. Different people give us different things. Make us happy in different ways.” She didn’t want to agree. She’d always been a romantic. The kind of girl who falls in love with one guy and lives happy ever after. But from a scientific standpoint, ‘sewage’ was as good a word as any for it. Monogamy was an impractical notion, one that’s hardly ever found in nature. There’s definitely something to the notion that polyamory can be a more well-rounded and fulfilling approach to sexual and romantic satisfaction. That is, with all parties consenting. She still had her doubts that that was the case here. It didn’t make sense for Amos and Holden to be anything more than an extra-‘marital’ fling. 

“Is that the excuse you’ll use when she finds out?” Holden scoffed. 

“She knows, Doctor,” he said, proving her wrong. “She’s in this with me, with us,” he nodded to Amos’s sleeping body. 

“Oh. I just thought—”

“You thought I was some dirtbag who thinks he can get away with putting his dick in anything that moves because he’s away from his girlfriend.” She wouldn’t have put it so crassly, but that was the gist. “I’m not that guy.” 

“Good. I was disappointed to think you were.” She hoped that didn’t sound flirtatious. The way Holden changed the subject told her it probably did. 

“You know I had eight parents?” 

“Eight?” 

“All married.” 

“All in love?” 

“In some ways, but not romantically. Three of them were in a polyamorous partnership, two couples, and another with no romantic interest.” 

“That’s… a lot.” 

“It really was,” he said, his expression one of fond nostalgia, “And it had its problems, but I grew up very loved. And it worked. None of the dysfunction of two partners demanding to be each other’s everything forever.” 

“I had two parents. They’re still together. Old, both tenured at a university on Luna. They fought, but never went to bed mad.” Holden smiled at that, a genuine happiness, no condescension. 

“I never said it wasn’t possible. But most folks aren’t that lucky. I think that I could be happy forever with Naomi, and never, ever stray. I really do. But I’m happier with both, and I’m damn lucky to have the choice.” 

“Could you be happy forever with him?” she looked at Amos. “Never, ever stray?” 

“If he was interested, maybe.” 

“I don’t know a lot of guys who have moonlight picnics for no reason with people they’re not interested in.” Holden looked back at Amos, pensive. 

“Maybe,” he said.

“I’ve got work to do. You, cuddle your boyfriend. He’s right, you could stand to relax.” 

“That’s rich, coming from you,” he joked. She laughed. 

“Fair. I’ll relax when you do, how’s that?”

“Deal.” 

She debated whether she’d go do her work or head back to her room and think about Holden and Amos some more. The decision wasn’t hard. 

####  **Holden**

He laid back down under Amos’s still-outstretched arm, not caring who saw. He loved the smell of him, how solid and unyielding he felt. He kissed his jaw, and then his neck. He didn’t know when during the night Amos took his shirt off, but never minded the view. He traced his fingertips over every tattoo and guessed at their significance. There was Hebrew on his forearm. Was Amos Jewish? Holden didn’t think Amos was culturally or spiritually anything. He supposed you don’t have to be Jewish to have a Hebrew tattoo. 

Elvi’s words echoed in his head as he idly worshipped Amos’s body. _ I don’t know a lot of guys who have moonlight picnics for no reason with people they’re not interested in.  _ They weren’t having a moonlight picnic for no reason. Except, Amos didn’t really agree with the reason, and Holden didn’t know if he did either. Amos didn’t even put up a fuss about getting hardly any sleep for what was hardly a mission. It was probably about the semi-public sex. Even if it wasn’t, there was no way Amos was ‘interested in’ Holden as anything more than a pal and a plaything. 

But Holden had said he thought he could be happy with Amos and never stray, and he hadn’t been lying. Of course, that would only be if Naomi wasn’t in the picture. He’d choose her over Amos if he had to, and he’d made that very clear to both of them. But if she hadn’t wanted him, if things were different and she wasn’t an option, Holden could be happy alone with Amos. That was a revelation. 

He held Amos’s hand. It was unresponsive to the touch, and positioned such that it was an awkward maneuver, but he did his best to hold it. They never did that. The only time they’d held hands was the day before, when Amos had gripped his hand so hard it almost cut off his blood circulation. Holden didn’t think that counted. The skirted the line between fuck buddies and lovers often, but holding hands crossed it too blatantly. He repositioned their hands a couple times, trying to get comfortable.

“Are you trying to hold my hand, Romeo?” Amos asked. He didn’t know what he’d woken up, but he hoped it was just then, and not when he was marveling at Amos’s body. Amos reclaimed his arm from under Holden’s neck. _ Great. He’s disgusted. _ But then, he did an insane, unbelievable thing, and joined their hands between them. “That better, lover boy?” 

“We don’t have to,” Holden back-tracked like a schoolchild. 

“I’ll try anything once.” 

“You’ve never held somebody’s hand? Gently?” Amos winced, probably recalling the day before. 

“What’s the point?” 

“I don’t know, intimacy?” Holden suggested pathetically. It sounded stupid. 

“Licking my asshole ain’t intimate enough for you?”

“That’s not intimacy.”

“Hot, though.” 

“Yeah.”

“So you want, like, dates and stuff? Flowers?”

“No.”

“It’ll be hard to find flowers around here.”

“I don’t want flowers.”

“Even if I did, they’d probably be razor sharp. Or poisonous.”

“Or both. I don’t want flowers.” 

“We could fuck real slow and romantic, like the ‘For Women’ category on porn sites. Light candles and play music and do it nice and boring.” 

“No, thank you.” 

“Could plastic print us some wedding bands. But the microabrasions.” 

“Please stop.”

“I want to be what you need from me,” Amos said, insecurity seeping through. Holden reflected for a moment on what he needed from Amos that Amos hadn’t already given him in abundance. He came up with nothing. 

“You already are.” 

Amos squeezed his hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: they're just friends with benefits. they're always gonna be friends with benefits. the whole time, friends with benefits.  
> also me, every fucking time: oops friends to lovers


	4. The night before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked for Amos showering Holden with loving praise and I... almost delivered?

_ The night before _

####  **Amos**

Holden spent the whole day dealing with Murtry, while Amos spent the whole day dealing with Holden. More specifically, dealing with his feelings for Holden. 

_ Feelings _ was a gross way to put it. He didn’t have feelings for Holden. He wasn’t in love with Holden. But it was supposed to be all in good fun, and it was becoming harder and harder to deny that it was more than that. 

The concern for Holden’s well-being could be explained away. He would never dominate someone sexually without a pretty high level of concern for their well-being. If that had to involve a lot of the serious conversations about trust and honesty that Amos hated having, so be it. When he hooked up with people who weren’t Holden, he generally cared about their well-being as it related to the sex they had, and then barely otherwise. He recognized it was a flawed way to care about people, but wasn’t capable of much else.

Holden was different, no matter how much Amos wanted to pretend he wasn’t. Amos cared about Holden all the time, before sex, during, and especially after. Amos wasn’t normally the talkative-after-sex guy. He’d usually finish, make sure his partner was good, then either fall asleep or leave. With Holden, they’d have entire conversations  _ after  _ sex, which didn’t make any sense to Amos. Talking before sex made sense. Getting consent. Establishing boundaries. Getting in the mood. Maybe, maybe getting to know each other a little, if it was pertinent. Talking during sex made sense, too. Making sure the consent is continued. Learning what feels good and what doesn’t. Teasing. Talking so dirty it puts them on edge before you even lay a finger on them. Praising or degrading or neither or both in equal measure. 

Talking after sex felt pointless to Amos. They’d both gotten what they wanted, and they couldn’t change it if they decided they wanted to. No point in giving and receiving constructive criticism unless they were going to do it again, which, if it was bad, they probably weren’t going to. No point in making polite conversation, either. People who talked too much after sex were usually exhausting to Amos, and he didn’t have sex with people who seemed like they’d be like that. Holden, as always, was a different story. He mainly let Amos do the talking during, but he always wanted to talk after. It would be one thing if Amos just didn’t mind it. It was a whole different thing that Amos really fucking liked it.

He liked talking to Holden after sex. Shooting the shit after casual sex, checking on him after intense sex. Making sure he knew, though Holden insisted on being called worthless and Amos loved indulging him in it, that he was worth everything to Amos. Not that Amos could say that out loud. Instead, he hinted at it with praise of a little sexier variety.  _ You did so good, baby. Love the way you feel, pretty boy. Such a perfect little toy for me, Jim.  _ And, apparently, as of that day,  _ I want to be what you need from me.  _ That was a new one, and Amos did not know how he felt about it. 

Amos was changing for Holden. He was becoming a person who not only liked talking after sex, but actually spent the time to wonder what that meant about who he was and where he stood with Holden, instead of just accepting that it was true and going back to thinking in explicit detail about having a threesome with Holden and Naomi. He was becoming a person who not only was changing for Holden, but was willing to change for Holden, if it meant making Holden happy. 

That was his answer, the explanation to why he’d hold Holden’s hand, why he’d scour the treacherous forests of Ilus to find him poison knife flowers, why he’d light candles and play music while they screwed softly with plastic rings on. Amos would change for Holden. 

Amos would change for Holden, but Holden liked him how he was. 

But Amos had changed for Holden anyway, which explained why he had spent the day planning Holden’s birthday, and thinking about how he could give Holden the intimacy he needed. The intimacy maybe they both needed. 

✧✧✧

It was pretty late by the time Holden came to their spot in the commissary, and he stopped at the bar first to get them each a shot. 

“Long day?” Amos asked, accepting the little glass and downing the shot. 

“They all are,” said Holden. “This planet takes too long to spin.” Amos agreed. He’d napped earlier to make up for the lost sleep the night before, but that already felt like a day ago. He was more than ready to curl up with Holden in the privacy of their own room. 

“Is Murtry okay?” he asked. He didn’t particularly care, but it was what Holden spent his day worrying about, so he figured it’d be nice of him to wonder. 

“He’s alive. Not quite convinced no one’s trying to kill him, but he’s alive.”

“I could kill him a little, if it would make him feel better,” he offered.

“How do you kill someone ‘a little’?”

“You stop punching once they’re dead.”

“Tempting offer, but pass,” Holden said. Amos pouted. Holden took his own shot. “I convinced him that you and me camping out again would be suspicious and unnecessary, so we’re off the hook.”

“Didn’t know it was on the table.”

“It wasn’t, but I’d rather get him on board than have to refuse and make an enemy of him.”

“He’s not already the enemy?”

“He’s trying to be, but he doesn’t deserve the satisfaction. If anything, he’s an obstacle to defeating an enemy a lot bigger than any of us.”

“A minor boss villain in a shitty fucking video game.”

“Sure.”

“And the final boss is whatever made the protomolecule?”

“Or whatever killed whatever made the protomolecule,” said Holden grimly. 

“Fuck. No wonder you can never fucking relax.”

“I’m trying.” 

“How about we try in bed, huh?” 

As soon as they were in private, Holden had his hands cradling Amos’s face, pulling him in for a desperate kiss. 

“Down, boy,” Amos commanded sarcastically. 

“How do you want me?” asked Holden eagerly, his hands moving to undress Amos. Amos took those hands and held them, instead. He wanted to do things a little differently. Holden looked at their joined hands in confusion. He looked at Amos with a furrowed brow. 

“Relax, Jim,” Amos soothed, releasing one hand to caress Holden’s cheek, his thumb resting on his lips. Holden sucked on the pad of his thumb and looked up with wide, glossy eyes. “Undress for me?” Holden nodded and shucked his jacket. “Slow.”

“I don’t know how to—” 

“I don’t need a strip tease,” Amos said. Practiced choreography would be so unnatural from Holden, it would be more funny than sexy. Holden was sexy in his authenticity. “Just don’t hurry.” He nodded again, the subordinate little thing, and pulled his shirt up from the hem. As he exposed his torso, Amos trailed his hands up over Holden’s abs and down his sides. 

“You get naked, too.”

“Hush, baby, no.” Holden tensed under Amos’s intense gaze as his shirt fell to the floor. Amos rubbed the pad of his thumb that had been in Holden’s mouth over one of his nipples. “You have the most gorgeous fucking body, you know that?” Holden ducked his head, and Amos tilted it back up. 

“Perfect for taking your cock?” Amos didn’t give him a lot of compliments that weren’t explicitly sexual. It didn’t surprise him that Holden didn’t know what to do with it. 

“Just... perfect.” Holden looked confused, but didn’t complain. 

“Are you just going to stare?”

“Just for a little while. Take your pants off.” Holden rolled his eyes and did, followed by his boxers. He was completely naked for Amos, who was completely clothed. “I am fucking crazy about your body.”

“So you’ve said,” replied Holden, impatiently. He rocked back and forth on his heels and toes, fidgeting as Amos took his sweet time admiring him. There was a hickey on his hip bone that hadn’t gone away in weeks, only because Amos kept deepening it every time it dared to fade. He turned Holden around, admired the deep purple bruise that spanned his asscheek. He kneeled down and kissed the wound, and hummed low like he loved the taste of it. “You really marked your territory.”

“Yeah, fuck.” 

He remembered the night he did that, spanked Holden hard with his DIY plastic paddle, focusing his attention on one side because he knew how frustrating the unevenness would be in the morning. Holden had yelped and moaned deliciously at every stinging swat, thanked Amos worshipfully for the punishment. After, when Holden had finished, a spectacular and intense orgasm ripping from his body, Amos had kissed and caressed the ruby-red skin where the bruise would soon form. It had been hot to the touch like a furnace. Holden had still been asking for more. Now, he kissed the discoloration the same way he’d done then— Loving, fond, apologetic. 

“You gonna eat me?” Holden said with an adorable hope in his voice.

“Not yet, hush.” Holden made a disappointed noise, bent over and spread his cheeks like an offering. As if to say ‘are you sure about that?’ 

“Tempting.” 

“Give in, then.” Amos smiled and laid an unsatisfying peck on that hole. 

“I am so lucky I get to have you,” he said, his forehead pressed to Holden’s asscheek. “I’m so fucking lucky.” Holden said nothing, straightening into a standing position. Amos stood up and turned him around by his shoulders. He looked pensive. Amos kissed the scrutiny from his wrinkled forehead. “You are so perfect to me.” He kissed his temple. “Precious.” He kissed his nose, then his lips. Holden caught his lips in a deeper kiss to shut him up, but Amos didn’t let it work. “Let me worship you, baby.” 

“Don’t wanna be worshipped. Wanna be punished,” Holden insisted, fidgeting under Amos’s hands on his shoulders. 

“I know,” Amos said. “I always give you what you want. Fucking love giving you what you want, precious boy. Let me do what I want tonight.” 

“And what you want is to  _ worship _ me? Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“Because you think I’m some kind of unfeeling barbarian that wants to use your tears as lube, and that’s what you like about me,” Amos said, and it came out more as an admission of insecurity than the joke it was meant to be. Holden pulled away. 

“What? That’s not true.” 

“It’s okay, I get it,” he tried to dismiss it. “We can do it like that, if you won’t have it any other way.” The soft, romantic thing was a stupid idea, anyway. It wasn’t Amos. Amos was good at unfeeling barbarian sex. It was dumb of him to try and change what wasn’t broken. Holden sat on the bed, and Amos followed. 

“I think you’re great at playing that  _ role, _ and it turns me on like crazy, but I know that’s not who you are. I can tell the difference between role play and reality.” That was a relief to hear. Amos should’ve known he was confusing his own insecurities with what Holden thought of him, but in his defense, he wasn’t quite used to having insecurities, and definitely not used to processing them. But it didn’t explain why Holden wasn’t into it as soon as he went for sweeter sex. 

“Then why won’t you let me treat you nice?”

“You can treat me however you want. I don’t like the worship thing. You said to tell you when I don’t like something, right? Even if it doesn’t hurt? I don’t like whatever this is.” Amos nodded and laid a hand on Holden’s thigh. 

“Okay. Thank you for telling me.” 

“I’m sorry. I appreciate the compliments.” 

“You don’t have to apologize for not liking something.” 

“I just… I’m not perfect.”

“I know that.” 

“It doesn’t feel good to play pretend that I am. Feels like pressure.” 

“I never meant to—”

“I know. You were being kind. I’m sorry I rejected that.” Amos shook his head. There was no reason to be sorry. It was actually comforting to learn that Holden would actually stop him when something was uncomfortable before it went too far. It lessened the anxiety of doing something disastrously wrong. 

“Am I allowed to make fun of the fact that the first thing you ever said ‘no’ to in bed was being complimented?” 

“Pretty fucked up, huh?” Holden laughed. 

“It’s kind of cute, actually. Very humble.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called that.” They both laughed. “What did you have planned tonight? Besides teasing?” 

“Thought maybe I’d give you a full body massage. Help you relax a little.” 

“Is that off the table now?”

“It would be less spontaneous.” 

“Still sexy. Love those big hands on me.” 

“Lay down.” 

####  **Holden**

Amos’s big hands on his back were perfect, massaging the muscles that had been tense for years. It would make a pretty good metaphor for the way being with Amos made him feel— every new problem he had to solve was a knot underneath his skin, and Amos’s hands on him made them all float away.

Of course, Holden couldn’t just lay down and enjoy a full body massage. He couldn’t let himself focus on the roll of Amos’s knuckles on his lower back, the way his palms rubbed down his legs and intentionally skirted his ass as they worked. Of course, Holden had to think about the implications. Amos set this up to make Holden feel good. He planned a night of compliments, kisses, massage, and slow, loving sex. He thought about that morning, holding hands and talking about intimacy. Maybe this was Amos giving that to him. He wondered how much of it was for him, and how much of it was for Amos. They were probably crossing a line here.

“What’s going through that big brain?” Amos asked him.

“I think I’m trying to find a reason to be stressed about this.” 

“About a back massage? You have a problem.” 

“About you being so nice to me. We’re usually kind of mean to each other. This doesn’t feel like us.”

“Feels good, though?” 

“Yes.”

“So who cares?”

“You’re right.” He moaned when Amos pressed deeper. “We’re still just, like, friends with benefits, though, right?”

“You worried I’m gonna decide we’re boyfriends without telling you?”

“Guess not. Today has just been… different. You feel different.” 

“I’m not that different. I do what I want, same as always.”

“What you want is usually to use me like a cocksock while I beg you to move inside me.”

“Fair. Maybe what I want tonight is a little bit gentler than usual. That doesn’t mean I want anything to change between us. We can still be mean to each other.”

“Good, good.” Amos slid his hands firmly up, down, and back up Holden’s back, digging deeper into the knots in his shoulders and upper back. 

“Are you gonna freak out like this every time I care about you a little? ‘Cause that’ll get old quick.” Holden wondered if Amos intended that to mean he cared about him often. It’s what he chose to hear, but it was probably wishful thinking. 

“No, I’m good. I just… I promised Naomi I wouldn’t fall in love with you.” Amos halted in his motions.

“And you think you are?”

“No,” Holden said. Amos let out a breath. Good to know that was as much a relief for him as it was for Holden. “I’m just worried we’ll cross a line.” 

“Somehow I doubt that by ‘don’t fall in love with him,’ Naomi meant ‘you can only ever be assholes to each other.’”

“Yeah, probably not. She’d probably think it’s very cute that you gave me a massage.”

“‘Cute’ isn’t exactly what I was going for,” he said, slipping a finger between Holden’s asscheeks. 

“Is the massage part over?” Holden asked, smiling. 

“I said  _ full _ body massage, didn’t I?” He rubbed Holden’s tight hole with his ring finger, just a little tease, while he pressed the thumb of his other hand in circles at Holden’s lower back. 

“If you wanna abandon the pretext and fuck me, I won’t be disappointed.”

“You got somewhere to be?”

“No, but I got a boner that does,” Holden jested, the joke laced with desperation. Amos laughed. 

“Let me take care of you. I always give you what you need, don’t I?” 

“Always.” He resumed the massage with both hands on Holden’s back, and it felt too good to complain about the tease. 

Holden let his mind give in to the blankness, focusing on nothing but the way Amos felt. The captain was putty under his hands when Amos spoke again. 

“You relaxing? I better not hear you’re thinking about something stupid.”

“Nope. Just how fucking amazing your hands feel.”

“Good boy.” 

“I’d be even more relaxed if you put your fingers in my asshole.”

“Bossy. How about my tongue?” 

“Glad we could compromise.” Amos laughed and slid into a better position, massaging the backs of Holden’s legs idly as he planted a kiss on his bruise. Holden bent his knees to give Amos better access, and Amos licked him with the flat of his tongue once, twice before diving in to eat him out with enthusiasm. “You’re so good with your mouth.” Amos hummed his acknowledgement of the compliment, making delicious vibrations against his rim as he sucked on it. 

By the time Holden was lubed and stuffed full of two thick digits, he was desperate for more. He’d been flipped onto his back, his knees pressed up to his chest so that Amos could marvel appreciatively at his cock, balls, and hole at the same time. Amos was kissing him, leisurely and nonchalant, as if he wasn’t driving Holden crazy with effortless movements of his fingers inside him. 

“Please,” begged Holden into Amos’s mouth. 

“‘Please’ what?” Amos asked, like he didn’t know. 

“Fuck me, I need you.” Amos slipped a third finger inside him, pulling an involuntary moan from his lips. But it wasn’t what he wanted. “Need your cock.” 

“I know, baby, you never want me to prep you enough.” Amos moved his fingers in a slow motion that simulated fucking, but didn’t satisfy the same. 

“Want you to break me open.”

“It’s a very sexy fantasy,” Amos placated, which was a ‘no.’ 

“Two fingers is more than enough. Your fingers are huge.” 

“So is my cock.” 

“Yeah,” Holden said, smiling. Amos rolled his eyes fondly, kissed him, pulled his fingers out, and laced their hands together. “Ew, don’t hold my hand with your ass-lubey fingers, weirdo.” 

“I finger-fuck you every night. But God forbid you get your hands dirty, right, pillow princess?” Amos taunted. 

“M’not a pillow princess,” Holden pouted.

“Of course not, baby,” he condescended. His smile said ‘check-mate’. Holden made a feral sound from the back of his throat, almost a growl, and he flipped the two of them over so he was on top. Amos put his hands behind his head and looked smugly up at Holden above him. Holden reached for the lube and slicked Amos’s cock up hastily, before lining it up with his hole and sinking down. 

“You feel so good inside me.” 

“Always so tight, babe.” 

“You’re gorgeous, you know that?”

“Let’s not start that,” Amos dismissed. Holden ran his hands up the sides of Amos’s torso and drank in the view of that muscular body beneath him. 

“You should know. I’m not just horny. I mean, I’m very horny. I’ve never been this horny. But I’m not attracted to you because I’m horny. I’m horny because I’m attracted to you.” 

“You should write that in your wedding vows.” 

“I’m trying to compliment you. Do you want me to say you’re precious? Tell you you’re perfect? You’re not.”

“Hell of a pickup line.” Holden swatted at him. 

“Not perfect. But you’re loyal,” he said, sliding up on Amos’s cock and back down. He sung Amos’s praises with every bounce as he rode him. “And selfless. Humble. Trustworthy— fuck— Funny. You— ooh— make good company.” Amos grabbed Holden by his hips and helped him out, bucking up into him and pulling him closer. “You’re— oh, yeah— smart as hell. And wise, too. Resilient. Strong. You take care— uh— of the people you love. I’m lucky to... be one of those people, I think.” Holden was panting by the time he ran out of compliments, but it still felt like it wasn’t enough. The thing he admired most about Amos was something so distinctly, uniquely  _ Amos _ that it couldn’t be put into words. There was no adjective in the English language to describe the magical force that compelled Holden to Amos. 

“And I’m hot, too.” 

“Yeah,” Holden laughed breathlessly, “fucking hot as hell.” 

“Am I allowed to compliment you back?” Holden hesitated. Amos flipped them back around, moving Holden easily like he didn’t weigh upwards of ninety kilos in Ilus’s gravity. Holden wrapped his legs around Amos’s waist and let himself be taken. He liked it better this way, anyway. So what if it made him a pillow princess? 

“No worship.” 

“No worship,” Amos agreed. “Just honesty.” Holden took a deep breath. 

“Fine.”

“You are… the kindest man I’ve ever met. I never really thought kindness was a good thing, until you. I thought it was a weakness. You turn kindness into strength.” That’s not what Holden expected. Amos was fucking him slower now. His eyes were focused intensely just past Holden’s lustful gaze. “You make me better. If I’m any of those good things you think I am, it’s because of you. I didn’t know how to be good until you showed me. I didn’t know I wanted to be good until you.” 

“That was a lot better than mine,” Holden said, because he didn’t know what to say. 

“I had the advantage of not having a cock in my ass. Plus, I, uh, have been thinking about it a lot.” 

“You’ll have to give me a do-over, then.”

“Can I finish in you first?” 

“Yes, please.” Amos gripped his hips tighter than before, grinded into him and kissed him with an earth-shaking ferocity. 

They were panting open-mouthed, their lips barely brushing when Amos came, and Holden followed quickly after as Amos jerked him to completion. Amos pulled out when he was finished, but didn’t stop kissing Holden. That was new. The kissing usually began and ended with the sex. Holden held on to Amos for dear life and kissed him with all he had. 

“I don’t think I’m ever going to have the words to tell you what you mean to me,” Holden said once he was snugly settled under Amos’s arm. 

“Thought you were the words guy.” 

“I don’t think it’s that I can’t find the words. I don’t think they exist.”

“You and me ain’t never needed words, did we?”

“No. But I wish I could explain it to you. I wish you could know. I’d fucking die for you.” 

“That ain’t special. You’d die for the whole world, Captain. You’re like, chronically selfless.” 

“No, I’m really not. But...” he thought about what he could say that would mean something. What he settled on was “I’d kill for you.” The way Amos’s eyes widened told Holden that struck something. Holden wasn’t a killer. He didn’t even like killing people who deserved to die. But he would kill in cold blood to protect Amos.

“I’d never ask you to.” 

“I know. But if you needed me to, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“Yes, you would. Don’t ever lose that. I’ll do the killing. You do the saving.”

“How ‘bout we both do the saving?” 

“Works for me.”


	5. The morning of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> top holden? it's more likely then you think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it wouldn't be this fic if i didn't sprinkle in almost every relevant ship in the fandom so uhhh here are some prax/amos references for you happy birthday holden

_ The morning of _

####  **Amos**

The alarm on his hand terminal vibrated under his pillow fifteen minutes before Holden’s was set to ring aloud. Amos silenced it quickly and looked to Holden, whose sleeping body didn’t waver in its serenity. Good. Amos hadn’t really expected that to work. Holden was a pretty light sleeper, the same way everyone had to be on a spaceship when anything could go wrong at any time. But he’d never wake up naturally before Holden did, and he had plans to wake him up for his birthday.

He brewed a pot of coffee and picked out a breakfast bar in one of the sweeter flavors, about as close to breakfast in bed as Ilus allowed for, and set them by the bed. He brushed his teeth, but didn’t get dressed, and left his hair mussed from sex the night before. When it was time for Holden to wake up, he’d set his plan in motion. They had a very long day of sexy festivities ahead. 

He’d spent a lot of time planning this. If ‘planning’ meant mostly fantasizing about the things Holden liked and how he could give them to him. Amos always paid close attention to what Holden liked and didn’t like. He was thrilled by the puzzle of unlocking pleasure through trial and error, and pulling dirty secrets from Holden’s lips with sexy interrogation techniques that were definitely not permissible by the United Nations. There had to be some kind of treaty that forbade licking someone’s toes until they tell you they get hard for somnophilia. He’d have to brush up on the Geneva Conventions. 

Despite never wanting to deny Holden anything, Amos had been hesitant to touch him in his sleep the first time. He wasn’t turned on by fucking a body that couldn’t say no or push him away, and would kill a guy who was with his bare hands. But Holden had called it the ‘purest display of belonging to you’ or some shit, and begged him to indulge the kink, and eventually Amos got the appeal. Holden was owned by him, and if he was horny, he’d take what he wanted. Besides, Holden had told him that every year on his birthday, he woke up with Naomi’s strap-on in his mouth, and who was he to break tradition?

Tentatively, Amos rubbed the blushed head of his morning wood on Holden’s parted lips, coating them in a sheen of precome. He didn’t wake up. When Amos slid the length of himself against Holden’s cheek, though, pressing harder, Holden blinked awake. 

Holden always looked sweet in the morning, like the weight of the world hadn’t caught up to him yet. He was grumpy before coffee, for sure, but it was a cute, innocent grumpiness, like a pouting kitten. He said nothing, just wrapped those pouty lips around the side of Amos’s cock, sucking wet kisses along the vein. 

“Morning, Cap,” Amos said casually. Holden smiled at him with sleepy eyes and kissed the tip of his dick. He didn’t greet back, but Amos supposed suckling on his cock was enough of a ‘good morning.’ “Deeper, babe. I know you know how to take cock.” 

Holden was becoming a very good cocksucker. He was quick to learn. Weeks ago, he had paid studious attention to the way Amos worked his lips around his cock, and emulated those skills the best he could. Amos had run his fingers through his hair, praised him patiently as he took what he could. Holden had been very stubborn about using his hands. He bought into the stupid misconception that a good blowjob didn’t require hands, a silly little rumor started and spread by people who definitely didn’t give good head, and probably didn’t get good head. Instead, he’d try to take as much as he could in his mouth, which meant Amos got a little less than half of his cock sucked, but Holden’s ego was intact. The thing was, Amos didn’t give a shit about Holden’s ego, so he took to using his own hands, instead. He would jerk himself off at the base while Holden sucked on the tip. Or, more realistically, he would jerk himself off at the base while Holden pulled off and looked sad at him until he said something like ‘if you don’t jerk me, I’m gonna jerk myself. Can’t get off from half a blowjob, baby boy,’ and then Holden would get the picture and use his hand, his ego just a little deflated. After that exchange happened a couple of times, Holden gave in to the reality that he was never going to be able to deep throat Amos for any satisfying duration of time, and used the more sustainable approach of jerking the base with his hand. With a more durable ego and a whole lot of practice, he got good. 

“Fucking hungry little cocksucker, I trained you well, didn’t I?” Amos said. He imagined Holden would be nodding eagerly if there wasn’t a pretty big obstacle to facial expression in his mouth. The hand that wasn’t twisting expertly at Amos’s length teased below his balls. He sucked Amos deeper while he massaged his rim, and Amos gave into the impulse to press his head down as he came. Holden sputtered a little but didn’t relent, and soon Amos was coming in waves down Holden’s throat. He swallowed it, as always. 

“Good boy. Get the lube,” Amos ordered. Holden looked confused at Amos’s wilting erection, still hard, but not for much longer. 

“You’re gonna put your soft cock in my hole?” he asked. 

“No,” Amos answered. “Would you take that?”

“Not sure it would work, but I’d spread my legs for whatever. You know that.” He did know that. It still surprised him every day. 

“Wow.”

“You’re surprised I’m that slutty?” 

“No, I’m surprised I said ‘get the lube’ and your weird little mind jumped immediately to me putting my soft cock in your asshole and not you putting your hard cock in mine.” Holden’s eyes widened, like it hadn’t even crossed his mind. Maybe that meant he wasn’t interested. But then he smiled, and got the lube, so Amos figured he was. 

“You’re gonna let me fuck you?”

“You want to?”

“Yeah,” he said, with a voice that said that should be obvious. “I didn’t know you did.”

“We’ve talked about it. The other day.”

“You offered your ass like a solution to my problems. That’s not the same as wanting me to fuck you.” Amos supposed he understood the difference, but didn’t think it was one that mattered. He wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t want to. 

“I think about it all the time, honestly. Your little cock in my hole,” he said. Holden blushed. 

“Not little.”

“Yeah, fucking little,” he said, stroking Holden’s hard-on like offering proof, though the proof wasn’t there. Holden’s cock wasn’t small. It wasn’t as big as Amos’s, but no one’s was. Amos just happened to know that Holden lost his mind over being belittled, so every once in a while he teased Holden for his size. “Would hardly feel it in me, you’d slip inside so easy.” Holden rolled his eyes and ignored it, though his cock twitched in interest. 

“You want it on your back or your hands and knees?” 

“How do you want me?” Amos asked. It was Holden's birthday, whether he knew it yet or not. This was about what he wanted. 

“You’re in charge,” Holden insisted, as Amos probably should’ve predicted. Amos nodded, and got on his back, spreading his legs. Holden was looking at him like he’d won the lottery just getting to peek at his tight hole. Amos liked Holden’s gaze on him. All of the words Holden was afraid to say out loud were in those eyes when Amos was naked for him. 

Holden treated Amos’s ass like his last meal on death row. He splayed his hands on either cheek, thumbs tugging at his rim, and buried his face nose-first into him, inhaling him. Amos laughed and shook his head.

“Lick, puppy.” Holden licked with the flat of his tongue like a dog while Amos’s fingers laced tightly in his curls. “That’s it, get me open. Won’t need much to take your little fingers.” Holden stopped with no explanation, kissed Amos’s thigh and looked up at him with wonder in his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You look good.”

“I thought we got the compliment thing over with yesterday. Tongue. Now.” Holden kissed him again, this time on the other thigh. Stalling? It wasn’t like him. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m really happy,” he shrugged. Amos smiled. 

“Good. Good, babe.”

“Okay. Gonna keep licking you, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah. That’s okay,” Amos said. Holden worked his pointed tongue just past his rim. Amos took one of Holden’s hands and squeezed. 

When Amos’s rim was pliant and ready for more, Holden kissed the seam of their joined hands and let go to squeeze the lube onto his fingers. He reached for that hand again as soon as his own was free, and Amos gripped him tightly while he worked one, then two, then three fingers in Amos’s tight hole. It had been a while since Amos was penetrated with fingers, even his own, but Holden took his sweet time, and he opened easy. 

“This hole opens so pretty,” Holden said with three fingers inside him. “Gonna feel so wrapped around my  _ big _ cock.” Amos took the bait. 

“Little boy thinks he’s big, huh? We’ll see. Fuck me.” 

Holden squeezed Amos’s hand and pressed inside him, proving as he stretched Amos open that his cock was not, in fact, little. He was a good lay, too, among other things Amos wouldn’t say out loud. 

“Harder, kiddo,” Amos taunted.

“Told you I don’t like that. Miller calls me that.” 

“Yeah. Miller also calls you a pathetic, egotistical little nothing, and that makes you cream in your pants. Fuck me harder, brat.” Holden bucked his hips relentlessly, smashing into Amos just to prove he could, and it was perfect. Holden squeezed his hand and whispered his name breathlessly as he came. 

Amos put his arm out, and Holden fell into his embrace.

“I like it when you wake up first.” 

“Don’t get used to it. Today’s special.” 

“Why?”

“Thirty-five years ago today, eight parents crowded into a hospital room or barn or wherever your little ass was born, and popped out a tiny crying thing named James Holden.” Holden’s eyes widened, impressed. 

“It’s my birthday?” 

“Yep.” 

“And you… care about that?” 

“Well, I figure you’re getting old,” he joked. “Should fuck as much as we can while you’re still virile.” 

“How old are  _ you?” _ Older than thirty-five.

“That’s not important,” Amos dismissed. Holden laughed. 

“Did you let me have your ass as a birthday present?” 

“Been thinking about it for a while. Figured today was a good day for a first.”

“So, that wasn’t a one-time thing?” 

“Hell no. I’ll sit on that little cock whenever you need it,” Amos said. Then he added: “if you’re good.” 

Holden snuggled closer into Amos’s underarm, breathing him in. They basked in the afterglow like that. 

“I like this part,” Holden said out of nowhere. “After sex with you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m crazy about the during. But I like the after, too. It’s like… there’s nothing else in the world but me and you, and there doesn’t have to be. Just, you, and me, and the taste of you in my mouth. And the way you feel. And the sound of your voice. And the way you smell.”

“Good smell or bad smell?”

“Good, oddly enough. Like, sex pheromones or something.” 

“Are you high?”

“No. A little. Not on drugs.” 

“If you say some corny shit about being high on life or me or whatever, I won’t fuck you again today. And I got big birthday plans.” 

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll keep the corny shit to myself. But I like this. You and me. After sex.” 

“Me too.” 

It was a little while before either of them spoke again. Amos was stroking Holden’s hair, while Holden was walking his fingers over Amos’s skin. But there was something that would eat at Amos if he didn’t mention it, so he broke the contented silence. 

“Was the ‘kiddo’ thing okay? I shouldn’t have done something you said you didn’t like.” 

“Somehow, you seem to know what I like better than I do. It was hot,” he said. That’s a relief, it was a gamble that he didn’t like that he made. “Don’t tell Miller.” 

“I couldn’t if I tried.”

“Yeah, and he’ll know anyway.” 

“I don't think you ever answered my question. Did you two ever fuck?”

“No,” he said. Then, after a while, “did you and Prax ever fuck?” That caught Amos off guard. 

“Prax? Where did that come from?”

“You had… chemistry.” 

“And you’ve been thinking about it for all these years?”

“You were happier when he was around. Sad when he was gone.”

“And that means I was putting my dick in him?” 

“I don’t know. Was just wondering.” 

“We weren’t fucking. I liked him. If I was a different person, we might’ve been something.” 

“What does that mean?”

“He was sweet. Soft around the edges. Husband material.”

“You thought about marrying him?”

“No. Maybe. Once. Settling down with a good guy who never killed nobody? Walking his kid to school and threatening to kill guys who look at her wrong? Cooking dinner, family-style, whatever the fuck that means? Being a dad and a husband? Who wouldn’t think about that?”

“Is it what you want?”

“No, not at all. I’d rip my hair out after a couple of months, or as soon as the sex got boring. But sometimes I wanna be the guy who does want that.” 

“What  _ do _ you want?”

“I want to fuck somebody else’s husband material. And, apparently, let him fuck me,” he said, kicking his legs up and spreading them for emphasis. Holden’s smile was small as he caught Amos’s drift. “I want to have weird, degrading phone sex when we’re only a couple of meters away because your ghost boyfriend gave you blue-balls. I want to have picnics. Drunk picnics in the middle of nowhere and sexy picnics in the middle of everything. I want to hit you with a paddle ‘til you’re black and blue and kiss it better. I want to hold your hand.” Holden laced their fingers together again while Amos continued. “I want to tell you you’re pretty, and kind, and special, and slutty, and bratty, and disgusting, and small. I want to wake you up with coffee and sex on your birthday, and then I want to make you more coffee because the sex was so good and it got cold.”

“There was coffee?” 

“Key word: was,” Amos said. Holden growled. Cute. 

“That all sounds really good to me.” 

“I’m not done. This ain’t summer vacation for me. I don’t want it to stop when we get back on the Roci. I know things will change. I know Naomi comes first, and family comes second. But I wanna be on the list.” 

“You are. You always have been.” 

“Okay.” 

“I want that, too. All of it. I have no fucking clue what happens when we get back on the Roci—” 

“I hope it’s a threesome,” Amos interrupted.

“Me, too. Doubt it though. Whatever it is, it’s not the end of us.” Amos could only hope that was true. He didn’t know Naomi would see it that way. 

“Good.”

“So… when is this new cup of coffee coming my way? I think I’m gonna need the energy.”

“Yeah, you’re not as young as you used to be.” 


	6. The evening of

_ The evening of _

####  **Holden**

Holden held onto the three rounds of magical birthday sex he had with Amos that morning as he trudged his way through the workday. Amos had insisted he took the day off, but shit kept hitting the fan, as always. 

Things had slowed down by late afternoon, finally, but Doctor Okoye, as always, had a concern. Holden was talking to her and Fayez Sarkis when Amos lumbered up behind him with a massive camping backpack on his shoulders. 

“Let’s go on a walk,” Holden turned around to the source of the proposition and blinked up at him. He understood the reference immediately. They’d done this once before. Amos wanted to have a picnic. Overnight. A kilometer away from the settlement.

“I’m working, Amos.” 

“You’ve been working all day. Leisure time, birthday boy.” 

“While I really appreciate the gesture, I’m not drunk and stupid enough to sleep out in the middle of nowhere again with you,” Holden said. 

“Oh, don’t worry, babe. I’ll get you drunk and stupid.” 

“It’s dangerous.”

“Worked out fine last time. Plus,  _ I _ packed a tent.” 

“A tent that’ll keep out the knife bugs? Lightning storms? Whatever else could spontaneously appear?” 

“Relax,” Amos said, shucking the backpack and letting it fall to the ground. He moved closer, pressed his forehead to Holden’s, and massaged circles into the captain’s tense jaw with his thumbs until it loosened. Holden hadn’t even known his jaw was clenched. He turned his head slightly around to look at Fayez and Elvi, but Amos stopped him before he could see them. “Look at me.” Holden made eye contact. 

Amos kissed him. It was barely more than a peck, but it was monumental. They never kissed in front of people. Amos would divulge all their dirty secrets to anyone who asked, and would probably fuck his skull without restraint while anyone who wanted to watched, but he didn’t kiss Holden in front of anyone. In public places, sure, in semi-secluded areas or when no one was around, but not in front of people. 

“It’s just you and me. In the whole world. Just you and me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Holden liked that idea. He wished it were true. He closed his eyes for a second and pretended it was. 

“A picnic,” Amos insisted. 

“Okay. A picnic,” he agreed. Then he looked back at a smiling Fayez and a blushing Elvi and added: “after work.”

“I don’t know, Holden,” interjected Fayez, “I think we’re all finished here. What do you think, El?”

“Well I’m a little worried about the—” 

“But it can wait until tomorrow,” Fayez insisted. 

“Yeah. It can wait until first thing tomorrow,” she said. He smiled at her. “Happy birthday, Mr. Holden. Enjoy your very inadvisable camping trip.”

“Thanks.” 

“If you find anything biologically interesting in the wilderness of this unpredictable, ever-changing ecosystem, maybe take a picture for me. If it doesn’t kill you first.” 

“What she means is, be safe out there. Sunscreen and all that,” counseled Fayez.

“Yes. Be safe,” she resigned softly. 

“We will,” Holden promised. 

Amos picked up his backpack and took Holden by the hand. As they walked away from the settlement, the same way they’d left almost a month before on the night that started it all, Holden knew Fayez and Elvi were talking about them, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. 

“Do you think they’re fucking?” Amos said after a while. 

“Who?”

“Your nerds back there.” 

“Fayez and Elvi?” 

“Sounds right.” 

“Who cares?” 

“I don’t know. They’re both hot.” 

“Why don’t you go back there? Maybe you can get that Devil’s threesome you always wanted?” 

“I don’t think it counts as a Devil’s threesome if you put your dick in the guy’s ass,” Amos said. Holden wasn’t particularly attracted to Fayez, but he didn’t mind the mental picture. 

“Not gay if it’s a threeway, right?” Holden joked. Amos snorted. 

“‘Cause god forbid I did something gay, right, lover boy? Nah, they can enjoy their two-way guy-on-girl scientist action. What’s the point in shooting my shot when you’re a sure thing?” 

“And I’m hotter than he is.”

“Maybe,” Amos teased. 

“I am.”

“He’s younger.”

“Like two or three years younger, maybe. Besides, young’s not your thing,” Holden said. He wasn’t quite clear on whether Amos’s thing for Avasarala was a joke or not, but he knew Amos was far from the kind of guy with a little schoolgirl fetish. 

“Damn straight, it’s not. Wish you were older.” 

“Yeah? You prefer geriatric pussy, huh? Hip-breaking sex?”

“Fuck, yeah. Hard just thinking about it.” 

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And you like me the way I am.” 

“Apparently I do,” Holden said, nudging Amos’s shoulder with his own. “Are we going anywhere specific?” 

“Just away from it all, for a little while.” 

“Where no one can hear me scream?” Amos stopped in his tracks and turned to Holden. 

“I don’t give a fuck who hears you scream,” he said with hardened eye contact and a chilling darkness in the timbre of his voice. Then, with light eyes and a smile, “we’re going on vacation.”

“I need to be back in the morning, Amos.” Amos rolled his eyes. 

“I know, Captain. But tonight? Let’s pretend you don’t.” 

“Okay.” 

They kept walking. Amos had given up on holding his hand, saying that it was too hot, but it was the thought that counted and he should be rewarded with sex for trying. Holden had laughed, and said he’d have rewarded Amos with sex for breathing. 

They kept walking. Holden had offered to carry the backpack, but Amos insisted that his little arms wouldn’t be able to handle it. Holden had stuck his tongue out at him, and Amos said he wasn’t intimidated by a tongue that’s licked his feet. 

They kept walking. Holden kept looking at Amos’s blank face, and Amos kept asking why. Holden didn’t really have an answer. Amos was good looking, and his presence had become a comfort. When Holden finally told him that, or at least the first half of it, Amos laughed, and asked why Holden was so obsessed with him.

They kept walking. Holden was falling harder for Amos with every step. They kept walking. 

Holden didn’t know if something about the dusty stretch of land they stood in called out to Amos, or if he’d just been tired of walking or satisfied with the distance traveled, but Amos stopped, dropped the backpack on the ground and started unpacking. He took out the blanket first and spread it out to give Holden a place to sit, then dug through the remaining contents for the tent kit. Holden watched him unpack two sets of clothes, two shirts that were both Amos’s own, pants and underwear for each of them, and pajamas for each of them that hadn’t been worn in a very long time, probably since the first time they slept together. 

“Both of those shirts are yours,” Holden pointed out. Amos shrugged. 

“You look cute swimming in my clothes.” 

He pulled out two compact sleeping bag rolls with pillows and a second blanket for sleeping under instead of laying on. Then he pulled out a compact lantern, mouthwash, toothpaste, toothbrushes, a gun, a first-aid kit, four bottles of water, protein bars, booze, lube, and a baggy full of what looked like—

“Marijuana? Since when do you smoke marijuana?”

“I don’t. But we’re on vacation.” Holden blinked at him in disbelief. Marijuana wasn’t an illicit substance, but it still wasn’t exactly safe, either. Real plants were a scarcity in space, so most of the stuff you could find cheap was synthetic, which made it shady at best and highly hazardous at worst. 

“Where did you get it?”

“Confiscated it.” 

“Here? Since when are we narcotics officers?” 

“We’re not.” 

“So you stole it.” 

“I prefer ‘confiscated.’”

“Why take it?” Amos’s eyes got distant, his voice solemn. 

“Kid couldn’t have been more than ten. His dad was working in the mines and he didn’t know where his mom was.” 

“And he was getting high?”

“He was getting gone. I took the stuff, he didn’t even fight me for it. I got him food and water, and when he came down a little, I taught him how to throw a football. He seemed to prefer it to smoking.” Holden smiled at the image of Amos tossing around a ball with a little kid.

“Look at you, father of the year.” 

“Kid needed someone,” Amos said simply, like he’d done what anyone would do. Holden would’ve helped the kid, sure, and confiscated the drugs, but he didn’t think that tossing a ball around would’ve crossed his mind. He knows a lot more people who would do a lot less.

“You would make a good dad,” Holden said. Amos laughed and shook his head. The guy really didn’t even know how big his heart was. 

“No, I really wouldn’t. Which is why I got my tubes tied as soon as I didn’t need a parent’s signature anymore. But I’ll be a fun uncle for whatever rugrats you make with Naomi, if you’ll let me.” 

“For sure,” Holden said, not wanting to press it, though he wished Amos could know how good of a parent he really would be. Holden had never met anyone who would go to such great lengths to protect children as Amos did. “Though, I don’t know what age kids have to be before you tell them Daddy gets fucked by Uncle Amos.”

“I think that’s an ‘after-they-move-out’ conversation.” 

“Or a ‘never’ conversation,” Holden laughed. “Are we really going to smoke this?” 

“It’s an option. No pressure. You done it before?”

“Not in a long time. Did it a little on Earth, but it was all local-grown and harmless. I don’t really trust the stuff you can get in the Belt.”

“How xenophobic.” 

“More like practical. That synthetic shit is closer chemically to MDMA.” 

“Well, if it didn’t kill a ten-year-old, I figure it’s fine.”

“I don’t feel great about using someone’s neglected child as a guinea pig, but I guess you’re right.” Amos straddled Holden’s lap and looked in his eyes. 

“Relax. We’re on vacation.” Amos kissed him. 

“I like kissing you,” escaped Holden’s lips before he could stop it. 

“You better. A month is a pretty long time to wait to tell a guy you don’t like kissing him.” 

“You kissed me in public today. In front of Elvi and Fayez.” 

“Should I be sorry?”

“No. Just, a long time ago you told me you wouldn’t be caught dead kissing me on the lips. Now the whole town thinks we’re boyfriends.”

“I don’t care what the whole town thinks. I only barely care what you think,” Amos said. 

“Good thing I like, hardly ever think about you,” he lied. Amos kissed his neck.

Holden got lost in the kissing. 

“Yesterday Elvi yelled at me for cheating on Naomi,” Holden said out of nowhere. He hadn’t even known he was still self-conscious about it, but it had gotten under his skin. He’d given her the same speech Miller had given him, about a human’s need to be loved complexly and in different ways by different people, but the more he thought about it, the more it felt like an excuse. A reason to not tell Naomi that he was falling for Amos. 

“Did you tell her to mind her own business?” 

“Is she right?” Holden asked. Amos squinted at him. 

“You’re asking me if you’re cheating on Naomi?” 

“I guess,” Holden tried to make it casual. 

“It’s not cheating if she knows and she’s okay with it.”

“She knows we’re fucking.” 

“Yeah, so not cheating.” 

“She doesn’t know we’re…” he trailed off. Amos got tense. 

“We’re fucking, Jim,” Amos ended the line of questioning. “Let’s get this tent set up so I can show you how ‘fucking’ we are.” 

Holden didn’t know if Amos was in denial, lying, or if he really thought they were just fucking after all they’d been through. Holden didn’t like entertaining that possibility. How could someone say the things Amos said to Holden and still believe they were scarcely more than friends? Amos wasn’t the type to placate Holden’s romantic sensibilities with lies and blown smoke. There was no doubt in his mind that every word Amos spoke was the truth. So how, after all that talk of wanting more than summer vacation, could Amos turn around and say it was all just sex? 

The tent was easy to set up, but they dragged the process out a little bit. They didn’t talk as they assembled it, just stole glances and almost spoke, then abandoned the words ‘cause they were too hard to say.

Guilt washed over Holden in the silence. There was no planet, even Ilus, on which what he had with Amos was just sex. On every planet, even Ilus, they were lying to Naomi if they didn’t tell her what it really was. The problem was, to tell Naomi, they’d have to say what it was out loud, and Holden didn’t think either of them even knew. Or maybe they both had some idea, and didn’t agree. That would be the worse-case scenario. It was also probably the most likely one. 

Amos wasn’t in love with Holden. Holden didn’t think he could ever possibly be so. But Holden didn’t know if he knew how to live in the shapeless space between love, sex, and friendship. He was falling in love with Amos. 

Holden was falling in love with Amos.

Marijuana suddenly seemed like a really good idea. 


	7. Some point after time stopped existing

_ Some point after time stopped existing _

####  **Amos**

The tent was set up, but they weren’t in it. They sat on the blanket, per tradition. Two guys who were just fucking, who also happened to have a tradition of cuddling on blankets while the sun started to set. 

Maybe Amos knew they weren’t just fucking. But he wasn’t ready to call it something else. If it was something else, they’d have to tell Naomi, and it would be over. So it wasn’t something else.

Holden took another hit from the pipe before passing it to Amos, coughing just as much as he had the first time. Amos took his own hit while Holden guzzled water. 

“It feels like getting my face fucked,” Holden declared when he was finally done coughing. 

“Good thing you like getting your face fucked,” Amos said, blowing smoke into Holden’s face. 

“It feels like getting my face fucked by a fire-breathing dragon. That ejaculates fire. A fire-cumming dragon.” Amos laughed and dumped the ashes from the spent pipe before putting it back in the baggy it came in. Holden clearly didn’t need any more for a little while. 

“You’re cute.”

_ “You’re _ cute,” Holden said like it was a cutting comeback. “With your cute little nose, stupid.”

“So booze turns you into a flirty little slut, and weed turns you into a child. Good to know.” 

“M’not a child,” he insisted, like a child would. 

“Okay, baby boy, c’mere,” Amos cooed. Holden made a grumpy face, but he curled up into Amos’s side and let himself be held. Holden stared up at the sunset with wide, fascinated eyes, while Amos stared at Holden. “Drink more water, puppy. Your eyes are red.” 

“You're not my dad,” he protested, while accepting the bottle Amos handed to him. He dribbled it all over himself. 

“Could be your daddy, if you want me to,” he offered, wiping Holden’s wet lips with his thumb. Maybe Amos was a little high, too. 

“There’s not enough weed or booze in the world,” Holden said soberly. Or as soberly as he was capable of. 

“What if we did coke?” 

“Unlikely. Will you kiss me?” Amos did, but Holden was weird about it. He treated the kiss like a science experiment, moving slowly and keeping his eyes open. He licked Amos’s teeth and sucked on his tongue, bit his lips and shoved his tongue too far into his mouth. It wasn’t hot. 

“Did you forget how to kiss?” 

“Tryin’ stuff.”

“None of it is working. Kiss me normal.” Holden closed his eyes and kissed like he always did, equal parts sweetness and ferocity. Amos moaned into it, and Holden straddled his lap to intensify the connection. Amos’s hand rested in the small of his back. When Holden reached behind himself and pushed that offending hand toward his ass, Amos took the hint and let it slide under his pants.

“I like kissing you.”

“So you’ve said.”

“And I like holding your hand. And cuddling. And I like the way you look at me like I’m the sunset.”

“You are the fucking sunset, Jim.” Amos didn’t know what that meant, but he meant it. Holden smiled a big goofy smile, something Amos hadn’t seen from him in… maybe ever. He liked it. 

“I think I’m in love with…” 

Time stopped. Holden was about to ruin everything. Maybe not ‘ruin.’ Change. Amos didn’t want anything to change. Holden was his. Whether it was to borrow or to keep didn’t matter, as long as Holden was his. Whether it was love or friendship or just sex didn’t matter, as long as Holden was his. What Holden was about to say would jeopardize that.

Amos wouldn’t say it back. He didn’t know how to love somebody, and Holden deserved better than to be lied to. He didn’t know what he would say. He didn’t know if Holden would be sad, or mad, or embarrassed, or pretend to be none of those things. But the calm would be over, and there’d be a storm. He’d seen it coming for a long time, brewing under Holden’s facade like a cold-front moving in. He just thought he’d be able to put it off. 

And then there was the question of Naomi. Holden said he promised her he wouldn’t fall in love. Which meant, he figured, that her permission began and ended with sex. Holden wouldn’t lie to her, and Amos wouldn’t ask him to. He’d tell her he loved Amos, and she’d ask him to end it. Or get mad. Or sad. Or embarrassed. Or pretend to be none of those things. And everything would fall apart. 

Amos would have to pretend it was okay. He would have to pretend it was no big deal, and they’d go back to being friends and coworkers. Summer vacation would be over. A long time ago, it probably would’ve been okay. Sex was sex, and Holden was good sex, but nothing more than that. The sex and the friendship were seperate. Until they weren’t. While Amos wasn’t watching, the sex seeped into the friendship, and the friendship seeped into the sex, until it was all one leaky mess. 

Amos had changed for Holden, and he couldn’t go back to who he was before. He didn’t want to. But when Holden said what he was about to say, he’d have to pretend. 

He didn’t know if Holden had paused for a really long time, or if the drugs just made it feel that way. Holden finished his sentence. 

“...this moment.” 

‘I think I’m in love with this moment.’ Holden was on top of him, his lips bitten and slick with both of their spit, his eyelids heavy from the weed instead of exhaustion, stress, or sadness. Amos’s hand rested casually on Holden’s ass, the air cooling as the sunset painted the sky. There was no one around for a kilometer. Amos didn’t know how to be in love with a person. But if he could be in love with a moment, it would be this one. 

“Me, too,” he said. Holden smiled again, or maybe he hadn’t stopped smiling. Amos kissed that smile and wished it never had to go away. 

####  **Holden**

If sober sex with Amos was perfect, high sex with Amos was other-worldly. Holden laughed at the pun, and then couldn’t stop laughing. 

“What’s so funny, baby boy?”

“Other-worldly,” he laughed. He stopped laughing to moan as Amos bucked his hips and pounded his prostate, and then started laughing again. 

“What?” Holden didn’t know why Amos didn’t get the joke.

“Because we’re on another world. Keep up.” 

“Okay, puppy.”

“Your dick is… at home. In my ass, you know?” Holden thought that was very poetic. “It’s where you belong”. 

“Yeah.” 

“You belong with me, okay? In me. Next to me. On top of me. Under me, sometimes.”

“Yeah. I belong with you.” 

“And I belong to you.”

“Yeah.”

“How are you being so normal? I feel  _ God _ in my _ asshole _ right now. And you’re just fucking me like it’s a regular Tuesday. Is it Tuesday?”

“I don’t know if Tuesday exists here.”

“Whoa.” Holden closed his eyes and focused on the sensation of Amos moving inside him, fast and slow and hard and soft all at the same time, for what felt like either an hour or a couple of seconds, but both in a good way. His hands were on Amos’s broad, muscled shoulders. He let them trail down his pecs and to his abs, recreating that glorious body in his mind’s eye. When he opened his eyes, Amos looked even better than he imagined. “You’re good at sex.”

“You too, kiddo.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I mean, your role in this ain’t exactly difficult, but you look pretty when you’re taking it.” 

“Thank you,” Holden said sincerely. “I take my reign as pillow princess very seriously.” Amos laughed. 

“I thought you said you weren’t a pillow princess.” 

“But if I am then that means you’ll do all the work, right? I’m okay with that.” Amos pulled out of Holden, and it was like losing a part of himself. The emptiness felt profound on a spiritual level, and for a moment he didn’t think he’d ever be whole again as he laid on his back with his legs still spread, like Amos never left. Amos laid next to him with his cock jutting out like a rocketship ready to launch, which felt like a very apt and clever metaphor to Holden’s intoxicated brain. Holden wrapped his hand around the length, mesmerized by the smallness of his fingers as they compared to it. His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the leaking head, so deep in its redness it was almost purple. “How does this fit inside me?” 

“You’re stretchy,” Amos said. Holden rubbed his own used hole with the hand that wasn’t keeping him anchored to Amos. He was pretty fucking stretchy. Holden would stretch, and fold and bend and break to accommodate Amos. He didn’t know if that meant his asshole or his identity. 

“I am as boundless as space herself.”

“That, too. Ride me.” Holden slowly moved to get on top of Amos, his least favorite position. Being on top was empowering. Holden preferred to be… de-powered. Dominated. Whatever. Not empowered. But he did what Amos told him to do. 

Holden’s stretchy, boundless self sunk down on Amos’s cock, and he really did his best to ride him. The thing is, he kept getting distracted. 

“You have really nice blue eyes.” Holden’s eyes were blue, too. Maybe that meant they were soul mates. But Naomi’s eyes are brown, deep and dark and gorgeous and all-knowing, and she’s more soul mate than Amos, so that didn’t make sense. More likely, it meant nothing. But as two pairs of blue eyes met, it felt like it meant something big. But that was the drugs talking. 

“You too, honey. Bounce a little.” Holden did, until he stopped. Amos bit his lower lip, and Holden was mesmerized by it. 

“I like your lips. Big pink lips. Juicy,” he furrowed his brow as he searched for the word. “Voh… lup… chew… us. V’luptuous.” Nailed it. 

“Perfect for cocksucking, right? Move, baby boy.” Up, down, up, down, stop. No. Amos’s lips were for more than just sucking cock, though they were very, very good at that. 

“For kissing. I like kissing you,” Holden said for the third time. Amos smiled and rolled his eyes. Holden smiled back. “I like your smile. And your nipples.” Holden pinched one. 

“Okay, on your back, sweet boy.” He must not have been doing a very good job of being on top. Could be a good strategy to get out of it, for next time. 

“Did I do bad?” he asked, not moving from his seated position on top of Amos. 

“No, precious, you were perfect. I’m gonna finish inside you.” Holden nodded and dismounted him, laying down and spreading his legs as far as they could go. He wrapped his legs around Amos’s waist once he was back where he belonged on top of him. He stroked the hair at the back of Amos’s neck while he fucked Holden until he came. Amos moved to pull out but Holden stopped him. 

“Stay. You complete me.” 

“You’re corny.” 

“You are… captivating. Like a rose, you know? Pretty. Sexy. Rare.”

“Okay, corny boy.” Holden’s tone grew more ominous. 

“But you have thorns, too. Untouchable. Won’t let me close to you.”

“You’re close to me now, aren’t you?” Amos asked, dismissive. He didn’t get it. 

“You’re in my asshole.” 

“That’s pretty close.”

“Not the same.”

“I don’t know what you need, Jim.”

“We’re more than friends.” Amos paused and Holden felt his heart sink into his toes, dragging painfully all the way down. It was either months or seconds before Amos spoke again. 

“I know,” he admitted. Holden’s heart shot back up where it was supposed to be and pounded in place. 

“Say it’s not just sex.” 

“It’s not just sex.” 

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes.” 

“Okay. That’s all I need.”


	8. Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be honest with you, this chapter kind of messes with the continuity of the series, at least with The New Normal, which takes place chronologically a few months after this. If you're interested in how and why, I will explain that decision in the end notes to avoid spoiling the contents of the chapter.

_ Either late the night of or early the morning after _

####  **Amos**

The sun was far below the horizon. It was darker on Ilus than it had been on Earth in hundreds of years. They were lit by a sky full of stars, a couple of moons, and a high-powered lantern. It would be late if time existed anymore. Or maybe early.

Amos had long since come down from his high. Reason would suggest that Holden would have, too, but he was still loopy. Maybe he’d gotten his hands on the booze while Amos wasn’t looking, but Amos didn’t think he’d taken his eyes off of Holden in hours. Maybe the drugs really hadn’t worn off, or maybe they had, but Holden liked the feeling too much to let it go. Amos could let him play pretend. He deserved the break. 

Plus, Amos liked high Holden. He kept waxing poetic about how hot Amos was, how good the sex was, how happy he was. 

“Am I gonna be embarrassed about all this tomorrow?” 

“About running around naked and barefoot yelling ‘take that, Miller, I’m fucking happy’? No, I don’t see why you would,” Amos teased. 

“I am.” 

“Embarrassed?”

“No. Fucking happy.” Amos kissed him. 

“Good, babe.” 

“Are you happy?” 

Amos didn’t think he knew what ‘happy’ was. He went his whole life being either satisfied or dissatisfied. He was satisfied if things went well, if he got laid, if the people who deserved to live were alive and the people who didn’t were dead, if he could help it. He was dissatisfied when those things weren’t true. But lately, he was also dissatisfied if Holden wasn’t satisfied, which was new. Empathy. Weird. 

But when Holden was satisfied, when Holden was  _ happy—  _ high as a kite, prancing naked around a death-planet he hated, screaming at the sky to say ‘fuck you, protomolecule, you lose!’ or stone sober, doing his damn job, catching Amos’s eye from a distance and giving him a tiny smile to say ‘I see you and I’m yours’— Amos was happy, too. 

“Yeah,” Amos said, “I’m happy.” Holden smiled and kissed him.

“When we get back to Tycho, you’re gonna buy me a butt plug.”

“Oh I am, am I?” 

Amos and Holden never talked about what would happen when they got back to Tycho. They barely talked about what would happen when they got back on the Rocinante. They’d both agreed they didn’t want this to end. Holden insisted it wouldn’t, but Amos wasn’t sure. He had no idea what Naomi’s thoughts were on the matter, and he knew her opinion mattered first and foremost to both himself and Holden. It was always clear that if she said it was over, it’d be over. He figured she’d probably call it over pretty soon after they got home. It was one thing to share your boyfriend when you’re not around, it’s another thing to share your time with him like divorced parents splitting custody. Amos was doing his best to live in the moment with Holden and not think about it. It wasn’t working. 

“Yeah,” Holden said. “Or I’ll buy it. I don’t care. Money’s nothing. But it’ll be ours, you and me. I want your plug in me. Maybe a collar, too.”

_ Ours, you and me.  _ As in, separate from Naomi. Something they shared alone. Amos liked the sound of that, and hated that he did. For the millionth time, he cursed Holden for burdening him with empathy. He ignored whatever the feeling bubbling in his chest was called, and replaced it with something lewd. That was more comfortable. 

“You want one of those plugs with a tail on it? Like a real puppy?” Holden’s face scrunched up. 

“No. Weird.” Amos shrugged. He wasn’t particularly into puppy play, but he thought Holden would like the degradation of it. 

“Weirder than a collar?”

“Yes. Like, objectively.” 

“I don’t know, if you want to be my dog, we should go all out. Get you a bowl to drink out of. Maybe a cage, too.” 

“Not your dog.” 

“You like it when I call you ‘puppy.’”

“There can’t be a line between liking a cute term of endearment and wanting to put a tail in my ass?” 

“You also want a collar, apparently.”

“I like belonging to you. Forget it.” He closed up into himself a little bit, or as much as one could when he was naked in another person’s lap. Amos rubbed the tops of his arms like warming a shivering body. 

“No. I’ll buy you whatever you want.” _ If you still want me when we get to Tycho.  _

“Good,” he perked up. “Good. I bet Fred’ll set us up in one of those nice, extravagant rooms. You could fuck me in a real bed instead of on some mattresses or blanket on the ground. Like a real married couple or some shit.” 

“You want that?” 

“‘Could be fun. Your slutty little wife. An illicit affair in a hotel room.” 

“That turn you on? Cheating?” Holden’s features hardened. 

“Cheating, no. Sexy role play that my girlfriend approves of? Hot.” That was a relief. Amos wasn’t going to be a homewrecker. 

“How hard would it be to get you in a little skirt?” Holden looked at him like that was a stupid question. 

“You got one on you? I’m down.” 

“Wow, so not hard.” 

“My ass would look cute in a skirt. Plus, easy access to my cunt, right?” Amos’s eyes widened. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Holden say ‘cunt.’ At least not when he wasn’t parroting Amos’s words back to him. It sounded exceptionally vulgar passing through the captain’s lips. “You like that? Me in a bed for you, in a little skirt? On my hands and knees with a plug in my cunt?” 

“I gotta get you high more often, Cap.” Holden’s face got weird and he shook his head. 

“Not ‘Cap.’ Not tonight. I am the captain of nothing.”

“Okay, Captain of nothing.”

“Jim,” he insisted. 

“Jim,” Amos agreed. 

“I like it when you call me Jim,” said Jim.

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but unless we’re fucking, you normally call me by my last name.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Yeah. I like that you’re not everyone, though.” Amos liked that, too. 

“Okay, Jim,” Amos said. Jim smiled. 

“Let’s take a picture.” 

“My cock’s not hard enough to make a porno right now.” 

“You’d make a porno with me if your cock was hard?” Sure. He had no objection to being on camera. He trusted Jim not to share it with anyone but Naomi, and even if it got leaked, he didn’t have a pristine reputation to uphold. But Jim did. Were he sober, he’d probably be very against making a porno. That would be a decision they’d have to make with a clear head. 

“If you were sober, sure.” 

“I’m very much not sober.” 

“I know.” 

“No porno. Just a picture.” Jim took out his hand terminal and held it in front of them. The gesture felt juvenile to Amos. He could feel Jim’s smile as he saw it on the screen, their faces pressed together cheek-to-cheek. “Smile.” 

Amos’s smile was forced. He didn’t really know how to act in pictures. He didn’t have a lot of memories that anybody would want to capture. He supposed, if there was any time in his life he wanted frozen in a tiny file, it would be this one. Jim took a few of him trying his damnedest to smile, then he turned to kiss Amos on the cheek, and captured that. He blew a raspberry in Amos’s beard, which made Amos smile for real, laughing more at high-Jim’s expense, but still laughing. That picture turned out better. He let himself almost forget the camera was there, and when Jim scrolled through the photos after, he looked happy in them because he was. 

“Naomi would love this,” Jim said, a hint of sadness in his eyes, or maybe a weird, emotional happiness. The photo on the screen was of Jim squeezing him tight and kissing his cheek while Amos side-eyed him, grumpily but fondly. He was right that Naomi would love it. She would make fun of it, but she’d love it.

But the picture told a story she might not love. Jim and Amos didn’t come to Ilus as the kind of guys who took cute pictures together. A month later, there they were, on what couldn’t be described as anything but a date, capturing the memory with a sweet photo like lovers in an old movie. Amos’s facetiously annoyed eyes were full of something like love, and Jim could hardly stop smiling long enough to pucker his lips in a kiss. If they were wearing shirts in it, it could be the photo that came with a heart-shaped frame. 

The picture would tell her everything Jim was afraid to say sober. She’d know this was more than “friends with benefits.” The idea scared the shit out of Amos, but he knew she needed to see it. Keeping it from her would be more than a white lie by omission. It would be letting Jim cheat on her. 

“Send it to her,” he said, knowing it could be the end of them. 

“Is that a good idea? I’m too high to know if that’s a good idea.” Amos wasn’t high anymore, and the booze did nothing for him. This was a sober decision. She had to know. 

“No secrets, right?”

“No secrets,” Jim nodded. 

“She should see it.” 

Jim typed something, then Amos heard the sound of a message sending. It wasn’t long before the comm rang, a video connection. Jim panicked for some reason and dropped the device, so Amos was the one to answer the call. 

“Hey, Boss,” Amos said. 

“You’re out late,” she accused. Amos shrugged. He had no idea if it was eleven at night or four in the morning. 

“It’s a special occasion,” he explained. “Did we wake you?”

“Nah, been working. I liked your little picture.” Jim was looking at her on the screen, wordlessly transfixed on the image. “Happy birthday, honey,” she said to Jim, and then looked back to Amos and asked if he was okay. He was loopy, sure, but okay. 

“I think so.” 

“He texted me, and I quote, ‘hi honey I miss you we on a picnic don’t be mad.’ No capitals or punctuation, and he misspelled ‘picnic.’” That answered the question of what he was typing. Adorable little thing. 

“How do you misspell ‘picnic’?”

“With a zero, apparently,” she answered. Amos ruffled Jim’s hair and he blushed. “Should I be mad you’re on a picnic?”

“I don’t think he meant the picnic.” 

“Did you do something I should be mad about?”

“I guess it depends what kinda thing you’d get mad about. I mean, we’re naked, and Jim is full of my come.”

“‘Mad’ is not the word that comes to mind about that, no,” she said cheekily. 

“Dirty girl,” Amos flirted. 

“Takes one to know one,” she flirted back. Huh. That was new. “Why is he looking at the screen like he’s never seen my face before?”

“You got an answer for that, baby boy?” Jim shrugged. 

“She’s so pretty,” he said softly.

“I coulda told you that,” Amos said. Naomi rolled her eyes, smiling. “Thought you already knew.” 

“I know. I never stop thinking about it. But I don’t get to see her all the time anymore. How could I look away for even a second?” 

“Well, there’s your answer,” Amos said to Naomi, who was smiling, big and bright.

“I’m very flattered. What is he on?”

“Marijuana.” She looked surprised more than upset, which is what he expected. 

“Good shit?” 

“Apparently. He’s on top of the world.” 

“Why would I be mad about that, Jim? I’m not your mom. I know how to have a good time, too.” Amos had been out clubbing with Naomi enough times to know that was true. 

“That’s not what I thought you’d be mad about,” he mumbled. 

“What is it then? I’m only gonna be mad if you keep secrets from me.” Jim took a long while to answer. 

“It was supposed to be just sex. But I got… feelings, and shit.” She didn’t look surprised. She smiled and nodded. 

“I know, baby. It’s okay. I can share.” That was news. Jim looked surprised by it, too. 

“But I promised it would just be sex.” 

“Yeah. And then things changed. They’ve been changing for a while. I’m surprised it took you this long to notice.” Naomi always knew how Amos was feeling before he did, but he didn’t expect that power to be transferable through a hand terminal. 

“What do you mean?” Jim asked. 

“I mean, a week ago Amos called me to ask when your birthday was so he could treat you. He talked for forty five minutes about how sad and stressed you were and how he wanted to make it better. I have never heard Amos talk for even close to that long, about anything.” Jim looked at him to corroborate the accusation. Amos shrugged. It wasn’t false, but he wasn’t ready to admit it meant something. “And you, Jim. The first week you were on Ilus, I watched all the life drain from your eyes. Every time we spoke it was worse than the last. It broke my heart to look at you. This… thing you have with Amos? Cured that. Now you’re picnicking.”

“Is that a metaphor?” Jim asked, tilting his head like a dog. 

“No. You’re on a picnic, babe.” 

“Right,” he nodded. “You’re so smart.”

“You’re so high,” she laughed.

“I miss you. I wish you were here. Well, not here. ‘Cause the gravity. Wish I was not here. Wish we were all home. Wish you were on my lap. Not in a sex way. Well, in a sex way if you wanted, but—” Amos put his hand over Holden’s mouth, and didn’t flinch when his palm was licked. Holden’s tongue had been in a lot worse places on his body, he wasn’t offended by a little spit on his hand. Naomi smiled and thanked Amos with her eyes.

“I wish we were together, too, Jim,” she said. Amos let him speak. 

“I want to be close to you. I want to be close to both of you. Is that allowed?” 

“Yes,” Naomi said. 

“Even if it turns into more than a friendship?” Jim asked. 

“This has always been more than a friendship,” she answered. 

“And that’s okay with you?” Amos asked, speaking for the first time in a while. 

“Yeah. It really is. Maybe I’m supposed to be mad, but I can’t seem to find a reason to be. I don’t see you loving me or respecting me any less than I deserve to be loved and respected. Am I missing something? Do either of you got a reason for me?”

“No,” they both said. 

“Good,” Naomi said. “I trust you, Jim. You have my permission for whatever you want my permission for. As long as you’re honest about it.” 

“You’re so fucking cool,” Jim said, still marvelling at the screen. Naomi laughed at his intoxicated bluntness. 

“Damn straight,” she said. “Now, Amos, I want to know how the fuck you got James Holden high on marijuana.” 

“It was easier than I thought it would be.”

They spoke for a long time about a whole lot of nothing. Amos could see the weight fall off of Jim, like he was ten years younger now that he was unburdened by the guilt. Amos had to actively try not to propose they all three had phone sex, but other than that, the call relaxed him, too. 

Holden, sober now, reluctantly let the call end about an hour after it started, and immediately climbed into Amos’s lap. 

“I love her.” 

“I know.” 

“I love—” 

“I know,” Amos interrupted before Holden could admit he loved Amos, too. 

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.” 

“Goes without saying, baby boy. You and me ain’t never needed words.” 

That night, as they moved together in the pitch blackness of the tent, the only two people in the entire world, it was so much more than just sex. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! So, you may or may not have even noticed my little continuity flubs, but it was pretty glaring to me, so I had to address it. In The New Normal, a lot of Holden's internal conflict hinges on the fact that he didn't tell Naomi he was catching feelings for Amos. In this fic, I had him... do that. Immediately. Here's why, if you care. I don't think it fully matters to the enjoyment experience of reading the series, but I also like talking about the writing decisions I make, so if that interests you, it's here to read. 
> 
> In the reality I set up in The New Normal, I established that Holden didn't have a chance to tell Naomi he was falling for Amos, because it took him so long to realize he was catching feelings and by the time he might've realized it, he was no longer in contact with her because of the events of Cibola Burn that take place in orbit. It felt justifiable to me that Holden didn't tell her, because he would've if he could've. Then, I set up a reality in this fic where Amos had spoken to Naomi recently, and Holden wasn't constantly worrying about the events in orbit which meant they hadn't happened yet, so it was totally possible for Holden to tell her, so it didn't ring true to me that Holden wouldn't. It has always been important to me to write a Holden that would not cheat on Naomi, and not telling her he'd broken the agreement he made to her would be cheating. It is my headcannon that she was always okay with it, because as I set up in fic 1, polyamory is pretty normalized in her world, and as she says in this fic, she always knew there was something going on. But Holden didn't know that she'd be okay with it. Both Holden and Amos would rather deal with the consequences of telling Naomi and having to end things than continue and hurt her. 
> 
> So that's why this fic doesn't exactly perfectly line up with The New Normal, which again, I don't think really needed to be explained, but I wanted to talk about it. So if you have thoughts on all this, let's talk about it! Hit me up in the comments or send me an ask on Tumblr: and-they-were-crewmates.tumblr.com. I will always be happy to create more lore in this universe.


	9. Epilogue: Two Years After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the timeline of this doesn't line up with how long I said they were on Ilus in The New Normal... shhhhhh.

_ Two years after _

####  **Amos**

Amos came back to their hotel room on Tycho with bags of food from Holden’s favorite restaurant and a... decorative gift bag. 

It was Alex’s turn to “supervise” the work on the docks. (It was more watching than supervising when Alex or Holden did it as opposed to Naomi or Amos, but they were all four more comfortable with a trusted pair of eyes on the Rocinante’s repairs, anyway.) That left Holden, Amos, and Naomi alone to do some very sexy celebrating. 

It was Holden’s thirty-seventh birthday, and it had become something of a tradition for the three of them to celebrate together. 

Naomi was naked in Holden’s lap, giggling and snuggling in that warm, hazy, post-sex kind of way. The three of them (when it wasn’t the four of them) had fucked so many times in so many configurations since returning to the Roci a little over eighteen months before, the sight of Naomi’s naked body tangled up in Holden’s should be commonplace to Amos. Still, he felt privileged to get to behold them. He didn’t think that feeling would ever go away. 

“Amos, my love,” his heart always swelled three sizes when Naomi called him that, “where the fuck did you find a gift bag covered in cartoon dicks?” 

“And did you just carry it across the entire station like that?” Holden piled on. 

“Sex shop. And yeah, was I supposed to hide it?” 

“I mean, you’re kind of a public figure, dude,” Holden said. 

“Nah, you’re a public figure. I’m just your boyfriend,” he said proudly. He’d gotten used to the idea of being somebody’s boyfriend. Or, more accurately, two somebodies’ boyfriend. It made him feel like he belonged in a way he’d never felt before. Part of a force for good bigger than himself. 

“My boyfriend, who just walked across the station with a pink gift bag decorated with disturbingly detailed animated phalluses.” 

“They’re so… diverse,” Naomi noted about the bag. The dicks were all of different colors and sizes, circumcised and not. 

“All dicks are good dicks,” Amos said. Holden made a very heterosexual grimace, like someone who hadn’t chugged Amos’s load that morning while he got split open on Naomi’s strap-on. 

“What’s in the bag?” Holden finally asked.

“Patience, birthday boy. Lunch first, then gifts.” 

He was a little nervous about the contents of the bag. He didn’t have a lot of practice giving birthday presents, so he didn’t know he chose the right things. But these days, Holden told Amos he loved him all the time, and Amos needed a way to say it back without saying it back. He was more of a show-it than tell-it kind of guy. So he chose gifts that would maybe say all the words he couldn’t say out loud.

Sure, he spent way more money than he should’ve, but what’s the point in money if you can’t spoil the people you love with sex toys? 

“Is it a tail? Tell me it’s not a tail,” Holden speculated. None of the presents were a tail, though Amos still had his suspicions that Holden would like that. 

“No, it’s falafel,” Amos joked, taking the to-go containers out of the other bag and handing them out while the dick-bag laid neglected. Holden gave him a facetious annoyed look and took his lunch. Amos sat down next to Naomi, who had moved from Holden’s lap so they could more easily eat. “I figured, what’s my guy like in his mouth more than balls?” 

“Pussy,” said Naomi, while Holden said “coffee.” 

“Nice to come in third,” Amos said.

“What, like you prefer sucking my cock to eating Naomi’s pussy?” Holden challenged.

“Touche.” Naomi smiled and spread her legs, and she laughed as they played rock-paper-scissors over who got to make her come before lunch. 

✧✧✧

They talked and joked merrily as they ate, and Amos didn’t doubt for a second that he was in love with the two of them. He didn’t know how he ever doubted it in the first place. 

####  **Holden**

“Present time?” Holden said like a child when he finished eating. Amos handed him the large gift bag. 

“Go for it,” he said. There were a couple of gifts inside, each individually and hastily wrapped in recycled materials. 

He knew, from the decoration on the bag and from knowing Amos as well as he did, that the gifts would all be sex toys. So when he unwrapped the plug, the only thing surprising about it was its size.

“It’s so big,” Holden said dumbly. 

“Don’t you like big?” 

“I’m not complaining,” Holden said, “it’s just gonna take some doing to get this in me.” 

“I got time.”

“Right.” 

“Next thing,” Amos demanded. 

“How many sex toys did you buy?” Naomi asked. He shushed her and winked. 

The next thing was also a plug, much smaller this time, but special in its own right. 

“A remote control?” asked Holden, incredulous. Amos just smiled and nodded. 

“You’re going to give Amos total control of a vibrating toy in your ass?” Naomi asked. 

“Maybe the remote’s for you, Boss,” said Amos. Naomi looked intrigued. 

“I like that better,” Holden said. “She’s merciful.” 

“I don’t have to be,” she teased. “Is there more in there?” 

“Looks like.” Holden pulled out a third thing, unwrapped it, and looked at Amos. “Did you buy, like, everything we’ve ever talked about?” 

“I’m not doing another year-and-a-half-long voyage without an arsenal of toys to use on you. Besides, I got more money than I ever knew what to do with, I’m saving a hell of a lot on sex since you put out for free, and I didn’t buy you anything for the last two birthdays.”

“You haven’t bought me anything for the last, like, ten birthdays.”

“I only started giving a shit recently. What, I owe you reparations?” 

“No. This is already more than enough.” 

“What even is that?” Naomi asked. 

“A gag,” Holden explained. A ring gag, specifically. With a ring big enough for Amos to put his cock through it. 

“Seems violent,” Naomi said.

“That’s the idea,” Amos said smugly. 

The next thing came in a necklace box, and Holden had a pretty good idea of what it would be. What he didn’t anticipate was the quality. 

“Is this real leather?” 

“No, but it’s really good fake leather.” 

“A dog collar?” asked Naomi in disbelief. Amos laughed, and Holden wondered how much of this gift was to turn Holden on and how much of it was to embarrass him in front of Naomi. Not that being embarrassed in front of Naomi didn’t turn him on, which explained the traitorous twitch of his hardening dick. He grew harder still as Amos tightened the dark leather strap around his neck and peppered kisses on his shoulder. The silver tag read ‘baby boy’ in a simple script. It was undoubtedly not a dog collar. It would probably be impossible to find a dog collar on Tycho, as there was no demand for a pet store in space. This was made for humans. Kinky, feral humans with animal urges like Holden and Amos, but humans nonetheless. 

Wearing his collar like a badge of honor, Holden reached back into the seemingly-bottomless bag of exciting goodies, and pulled out what was unquestionably a bottle of booze. He unwrapped it to find it was some of the best whiskey Ganymede had to offer, distilled from real grains, and aged, at least for a little while. It was no real Earth-made Scotch, but it was just about as good as it got in the Belt. Holden had forgotten the taste of good Earther booze over the years, anyway. This was probably the most expensive liquor on the station. 

“This is too much, Amos,” Holden insisted. “Really.” Amos shook his head and shushed him. 

“Let me spoil you,” he said. Holden was moved by the sincerity in his eyes. Holden knew Amos loved him, though he never told him so. Maybe this was the way he said it. 

There was one more gift at the bottom of the bag, but as Holden pulled it out, he couldn’t guess what it could be. He unwrapped it, and his eyes widened. 

The book was a real hardcover copy, something that scarcely existed anymore. His parents had a lot of them at home, but it was an eccentricity of theirs, one they were very privileged to afford. Holden was the only one he knew of on the Roci crew that had ever even held a book. Not because the others weren’t well-read, but because they were more practical, and less romantic than he was. They read on screens like just about everyone else in the galaxy. 

Holden took the novel out of the cover and traced his fingers over the title. Dune. It was a twenty-first century science fiction story that was still Earth’s best-selling novel of the genre. It was a commentary on hero worship, a warning against following a leader uncritically. It was very in line with Holden’s values. Holden wondered if Amos had read it and understood that, or if he chose the book based on its genre and popularity. Either way, it was beyond thoughtful. Amos gave him a book— a real solid, hardcover book from 20th century Earth. It was an understanding of who Holden was and what he liked outside of the bedroom. 

If the book alone hadn’t been luxurious enough, it was cradled in a leather (or a good fake leather) cover, and belted with a braided tie-closure. The material was a cognac brown color, soft and thick like real cowhide. The gift was an extravagance, something incredibly unlike anything Amos would ever spend his money on, but exactly the kind of thing that appealed to Holden. It was engraved on the inside. 

_ I like kissing you.  _

_ A _

Tucked into the cover was the photo they took on their picnic two years before, printed on real paper in real ink. 

Holden didn’t know he was crying until Naomi wiped the tear from his eye. He looked up at Amos, who looked confused at his reaction. 

“Are you doing that weird thing where you cry ‘cause you’re happy?” Amos asked. Holden nodded because he couldn’t speak. “Cool. So you like it?” Holden nodded again, weeping. Amos looked at Naomi for assistance. 

“It’s a good gift,” she said. “You did really good, Amos.” 

Holden still said nothing, but he crawled into Amos’s lap and nuzzled against his chest as he cried. Amos supported his weight easily in his arms, rubbing and patting his back tentatively. 

“What do I do about this?” Amos asked Naomi. Holden laughed at that. Amos didn’t know why he laughed, but laughing was better than crying. 

“I’m okay,” Holden said. “I’m just… really fucking in love with you.” 

“I mean, me too, but you don’t see me cryin’ about it,” Amos said.  _ Me too.  _ As in,  _ I’m in love with you, too.  _ Holden’s heart warmed. He looked at Naomi, whose smile was shining brighter than the stars, and his heart was a furnace inside his chest. 

Naomi kissed Holden as Amos held him. There were no secrets, no lies, no jealousy, guilt, or regret. It was the three of them, three equidistant stars in a loving constellation. 

It was home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! What a journey!

**Author's Note:**

> I made a tumblr! Talk to me there: and-they-were-crewmates.tumblr.com


End file.
